Roger Martin Quotes

• You need to be uncomfortable and apprehensive: True strategy is about placing bets and making hard choices. The objective is not to eliminate risk but to increase the odds of success.

  Roger Martin

  Odds, Choices, Risk

  "The Big Lie of Strategic Planning". Article by Roger Martin, hbr.org. January - February 2014.

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• The two most fundamental strategic choices are deciding where to play and how to win.

  Roger Martin

  Winning, Play, Two

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• When it comes to innovation, business has much to learn from design. The philosophy in design shops is, 'try it, prototype it, and improve it'.

  Roger Martin

  Philosophy, Design, Innovation

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• Design isn't just about making things beautiful; it's also about making things work beautifully.

  Roger Martin

  Beautiful, Business, Work

  Roger Martin (2013). “Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage”, p.30, Harvard Business Press

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• Business people don't need to understand designers better. They need to be designers.

  Roger Martin

  People, Needs, Designer

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• The ability to face constructively the tension of opposing ideas and instead of choosing one at the expense of the other, generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a new idea that contains elements of the opposing ideas but is superior to each.

  Roger Martin

  Ideas, Creative, Elements

  Roger L. Martin (2009). “The Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking”, p.27, Harvard Business Press

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• The status quo is more tenacious than anyone would ever imagine. The human mind prefers continuity rather than change. So it really has to be committed to eliminating a bad habit to even start down that path.

  Roger Martin

  Mind, Path, Imagine

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• The fundamental purpose of design thinking is to produce something that does not now exist. And so it is with integrative thinking - in the face of conflicting models, it seeks to generate a creative resolution of the tension in the form of a model that contains elements of each but is superior to both. So the goals are aligned completely.

  Roger Martin

  Thinking, Goal, Design

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• In order to have a hope of creating better answers, we need to deeply understand the logic of the opposing answers. That means thinking about how we think about both models - not just do we like one versus the other. Rather we have to ask: How do I think each model produces the results that it does? Metacognition, thinking about thinking, builds up our capacity to do that and to play with opposing ideas - and new models - in real time.

  Roger Martin

  Real, Mean, Thinking

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• The virtue of small-to-midsize companies is that they tend to be more flexible and it is easier to experiment with new ways of working. So just try to tackle one problem you're really struggling with, together with your team. Get started and see what happens. Chances are you will be happy with the outcome.

  Roger Martin

  Team, Struggle, Trying

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• I was blown away when I figured out that none of the great integrative moves that I studied came as a result of starting with a blank sheet of paper - as many innovation coaches suggest. Integrative solutions came directly from mining the existing models for the best of their nuggets. So I never start with a blank sheet of paper anymore.

  Roger Martin

  Moving, Innovation, Coaches

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• I always have a pad of paper and a pencil within reach, to catch on the wing this turn of phrase which strikes me as felicitous, that idea which I hope to be able to examine more closely in the light of day.

  Roger Martin

  Light, Wings, Ideas

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• Typically to get toward a productive outcome in negotiation you have to make the initial move of genuinely exploring someone's model. If you don't, it is unlikely that they will be willing to explore yours. And if you genuinely explore and understand theirs - without judging it - they will be willing to explore yours. Once they reach that point, they are primed to explore the productive combination of both models and won't be as obsessed about trying to make sure their model prevails.

  Roger Martin

  Moving, Judging, Trying

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• I love that Toronto is demonstrating that a big, highly diverse, multicultural city can actually work and work well, if its residents have the attitude of Torontonians.

  Roger Martin

  Attitude, Cities, Toronto

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