Why You Should Stop Compromising
Jennifer Riel talks about: Integrative Thinking
I recently had a conversation with Jennifer Riel that shifted my perspective on decision-making. We have all been there. You are sitting in a boardroom or staring at a spreadsheet, stuck between a rock and a hard place. You have two options, and honestly, both of them feel like losing.
Maybe you have to choose between cutting costs to save the budget or investing in innovation to save the future. Perhaps you are deciding between standardising a process for efficiency or customising it for a better client experience.
It usually feels like a painful trade-off. We grit our teeth and pick the ‘least worst’ option. Or, we try to compromise. We take a little bit of Option A and a little bit of Option B and mash them together until we have a lukewarm solution that makes nobody happy.
Jennifer Riel, the former Chief Operating Officer at IDEO and co-author of Creating Great Choices, calls this “smushing”. I absolutely love that term because it perfectly describes that messy, unsatisfying middle ground where good ideas go to die.
But what if you didn’t have to choose? What if you didn’t have to compromise?
In our latest podcast episode, Jennifer walked us through Integrative Thinking. It is a methodology that rejects the tyranny of ‘either/or’ and instead uses the tension between opposing ideas to generate a creative resolution. A new idea that contains elements of the opposing models but is superior to both.
This is not magic. It is a discipline. And it is one of the most valuable tools a leader can have in their toolkit.
What is Integrative Thinking?
At its heart, integrative thinking is a mindset. It starts with the refusal to accept that you are limited to the binary choices in front of you.
In traditional strategy, we are taught to make trade-offs. If you want high quality, you must accept high cost. If you want speed, you might sacrifice accuracy. Jennifer argues that while trade-offs are real, we accept them too easily. Integrative thinking asks us to pause before we pick a side.
Instead of debating which option is ‘right’, we explore what is valuable about both models.
The goal is to move beyond the trade-off line. We want to find a solution that yields the benefits of Option A and Option B without the downsides of either. This requires us to hold two opposing ideas in our heads at the same time without panicking.
The P&G Innovation Dilemma
To understand how this works in practice, Jennifer shared a fascinating case study from Procter & Gamble (P&G) during the tenure of A.G. Lafley.
P&G was facing a classic innovation crisis. They needed to grow, which meant they needed more breakthrough products. However, the cost of research and development (R&D) was skyrocketing. The traditional model offered a strict trade-off:
Invest heavily in R&D: You get more innovation, but the costs destroy your short-term profitability.
Cut R&D spending: You save money now, but your innovation pipeline dries up and you lose market share later.
Most leaders would try to optimise along this curve. They would try to find the exact amount of money they could spend to get ‘just enough’ innovation.
Lafley refused to accept that trade-off. He asked a different question: How can we get more innovation for less money?
By using integrative thinking, P&G realised that the most expensive part of innovation was the invention phase: the actual discovery of new molecules and technologies. However, P&G excelled at the development and commercialisation phase.
They looked at the opposing models and created a third way. They called it Connect and Develop.
Instead of inventing everything in-house, they decided to buy or license inventions from the outside world: lone inventors, universities, and small startups. They then used their internal machine to commercialise those ideas.
They got the volume of ideas from the ‘high investment’ model and the cost-efficiency of the ‘low investment’ model. They didn’t compromise; they changed the game.
The Problem with “Debate Club”
One of the key insights Jennifer shared is how we handle disagreement in teams. Usually, we treat decision-making like a high school debate club.
Team A argues for the Standardisation Model. They list all the pros of their side and all the cons of the other side. Team B does the same for the Customisation Model.
Jennifer points out that this is cognitively dangerous. Once you articulate why your side is right and the other is wrong, you become psychologically committed to that stance. You stop listening.
Integrative thinking flips this. You must separate the person from the idea. The goal is not to win the argument. The goal is to ‘fall in love’ with the opposing concept. You have to genuinely ask: “What is valuable about this model that I hate? What problem does it solve for the people who love it?”
Only when you truly understand the value of both sides can you begin to design a solution that incorporates the best of both.
Takeaways for Leaders
If you want to bring this into your organisation, you do not need to hire a consultant or hold a seminar. As Jennifer wisely noted, you can introduce integrative thinking by stealth.
Be the Model: When your team is stuck in a binary argument, do not force a vote. Pause the room. Ask them to stop arguing for their preferred option and instead articulate the benefits of the option they oppose.
Mine the Conflict: Do not smooth over tension. If two smart people on your team strongly disagree, that is not a problem to be fixed; it is a resource to be mined. The intensity of their disagreement suggests there is real value on both sides.
The Magic Question: When faced with a trade-off, ask: “What would have to be true for us to get the best of both worlds?” This shifts the brain from decision-making mode into problem-solving mode.
Takeaways for Coaches
For those of you working as executive coaches, integrative thinking is a powerful framework to help clients who feel stuck.
Move Beyond the Polish: Clients often present a polished version of their problem where the answer seems obvious. Dig deeper. Help them find the opposing model. If they say “I have to fire this person,” ask them to construct the argument for keeping them.
Emotional Distance: Help your client separate their ego from their options. Jennifer suggests treating the options as prototypes or hypotheses rather than beliefs.
Defining the Tension: Often, a client is stressed because they haven’t clearly defined the opposing models. They just feel the pressure. helping them name the tension (e.g., “This is a tension between Speed and Quality”) gives them power over it.
Conclusion
We live in a complex world. The easy problems have already been solved. The challenges that land on your desk today are the messy ones. The ones that look like lose-lose scenarios.
You do not have to settle for the “smush”. You do not have to settle for a watered-down compromise that pleases no one.
By staying curious, by refusing to settle, and by looking for the value in opposing views, you can create great choices.
I highly recommend checking out Jennifer’s book, Creating Great Choices. It is a practical guide to mastering this mindset.
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