Stimulating new modes of thinking
POETRY, coding and philosophy are the subjects that Prof Roger Martin, global influencer in management strategy, design, innovation and business education, believes are most important for all who aspire to future-ready leadership in the 21st century.
Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at Toronto University’s Rotman Management School and former dean of the institution, Martin spoke on strategy and innovation for transforming organisations at a breakfast hosted by the University of Cape Town’s (UCT’s) Graduate School of Business, the Bertha Centre and Deloitte.
He challenged leaders in business and business education to consider whether they were sufficiently geared for the innovation challenges of the dynamic, complex environments that characterise modern economies.
In Martin’s view, most US business education is failing business. It needs, he says, to wake up to a thinking that is more suited to the world, as “there is way more innovation going on in business schools” in other countries.
According to Martin, education that does not embrace the perspectives of others can’t teach how to use and capitalise on the diversity of thought available.
Yet, for example, the value of interdisciplinary teamwork that is crucial for problem-solving in the contemporary era, is realised by people who have learnt how to collaborate with those who see the world differently from themselves, to create solutions that are greater than the sum of their own knowledge or experience.
Martin says that data-driven analytical thinking remains the default-thinking mode in business. This limits business strategy to what is known and has already happened, and results in business models that are built for reliability and optimisation and based on exploitation of what already exists.
What is needed for strategising and designing effectively for the future is an alternative way of thinking that integrates intuitivethinking and includes a mode of business that is built for creativity and validity and that incorporates exploration. THIS
model requires that the central question dominating business thinking change from “what is true?” to “what would have to be true for this idea to be a good one?” And the thinking capacity of the most effective person in any organisation will draw on both analytical and intuitive-thinking, the education expert insists.
Martin advances design thinking — the design-led innovation methodology — as the thinking needed for synthesising analytical and intuitive thinking, and integrating modes of exploration and exploitation.
In his view, design-thinking enables the best forward-looking solutions; giving organisations a critical competitive advantage in the contemporary era.
It is the key, he says, to futureforward business leadership that can innovate in complex, fast-changing modern economies.
In advocating the kind of thinking necessary for the integrated world that he considers the most powerful, he challenges the conventional wisdom of science, technology, engeneering and mathematics education as leading to an over-reliance on analytical thinking. He believes contemporary business leaders need to integrate the unknown in their strategy and plans, and have the ability to construct compelling arguments to advocate for their solutions. This is what makes disciplinessuch as philosophy, which teaches rhetoric, important.
Martin is a leading expert on integrative thinking, business-design strategy and country competitiveness, and the go-to strategist and adviser to some of the world’s leading companies, such as Lego and Procter & Gamble.
He heads the Skoll Foundation and holds the Premier’s Chair in Productivity and Competitiveness in Toronto.
His accolades include being named one of the most influential designers in the world, one of the 10 most influential business professors and the third most influential business thinker (2013). He has authored and co-authored 11 books including The Rise and Likely Fall of the Talent Economy, Getting Beyond Better, The Future of the MBA, Fixing the Game, and Playing to Win; and he has regularly been published in The Harvard Business Review, The New York Times and The Financial Times. H
E IS described by Prof Kosheek Sewchurran, director of the UCT Graduate School of Business’s executive management programme as “the most effective concept maker in business education in the 21st century”, based on the numerous successful interventions that Martin has introduced to business education.
Sewchurran says the significance of Martin’s contribution lies in his being able to match the systemic changes he considers necessary with innovations in education and ideas.
Martin’s recognition of the attributes that contemporary leaders require is particularly pertinent to the global economy of the 21st century. This is reflected in the central focus of the 2016 World Economic Forum, which sought to understand the implication of the rapid digitisation for decisionmakers in industry and the government, who are responsible for developing solutions in an increasingly complex, connected and fast-paced world.
In SA the challenges — and opportunities — are significant too. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2015-16 country report for SA paints the picture of a stagnating economy that needs opportunitydriven entrepreneurship for employment creation and economic growth. Yet, the country struggles to convert its comparatively high record for innovation into viable enterprises.
In this context, design-thinking’s human-centred innovation process can act as a change-maker for leaders. As Richard Perez, director of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design Thinking at UCT explains, design-thinking adds the desires and needs of humans to the financial viability and technological feasibility on which business usually focuses.
The innovation that happens at the nexus of these three (viability, feasibility and desirability) is more likely to succeed because it reflects what people, the end-users and those affected by the innovation, actually want and are suitable to the contexts they experience.