There's a secret about strategy that no one tells you: Every function has one, whether or not it is written down and whether or not it is the product of an official strategic-planning process. If functions do not adopt a strategy consciously, they almost inevitably end up defaulting to one of two unconscious models, both of which are likely to result in their becoming a drag on corporate performance rather than a driver of it. Most leaders acknowledge that companies and business units need strategies. But for corporate functions--shared services such as IT, HR, R&D, finance, and so on--the need for strategy is less widely understood. In many firms, functions just exist, serving the company in whatever manner and at whatever scale the business units demand. In this article, the authors describe the problems of the unconscious strategies and outline a strategy-making framework to help functions strengthen the capabilities that set their company apart.

The authors begin by asking the reader, How often do you make choices? Really make them? Or how often do you just accept one of the choices that is handed to you? They describe how LEGO's CEO went about creating a new choice for his company-one that did not previously exist as an option. They describe how this display of 'Integrative Thinking' brings together three thinking skills to create new choices: metacognition, empathy and creativity. These components, they argue, can overcome the limitations of current decision-making processes and produce better outcomes.

Our schools, their curricula and their governance structures are part of society's purpose-built knowledge infrastructure. The problem is, many of today's most successful leaders believe this infrastructure is not up for the job it was designed for: Bill Gates has said that our schools "cannot teach our kids what they need to know today." The authors argue that we will always face the challenge of matching our knowledge infrastructure with the skills we need tomorrow; and instead of constantly trying to fill that gap, our purpose should be to enable students to overcome the gap effectively themselves, throughout their lives.

Peter Drucker once said that the most effective executives disregard conventional wisdom about reaching consensus and instead work to create disagreement and dissention. As Drucker hints, opposing models are only a problem if we choose to treat them as such. The authors describe the four phases of Integrative Thinking, an approach to model creation developed at the Rotman School of Management that has evolved through research and practice. Even once you reach your 'integrative solution', the authors note that the challenge isn't over: all solutions will eventually be made obsolete, and as a result, integrative thinkers treat their solutions as 'provisional': as new information emerges in opposition to the 'solution', the process begins anew. However, when applied thoughtfully, they show that integrative thinking can give executives a fighting chance at tackling the wicked problems they face.

In a business world where virtually all of the basic advantages have been competed away, organizations can still succeed by solving a trade-off that other people accept. That's why 'Integrative Thinking' is such an important concept, says the author. Introduced by then-Dean Roger Martin at the Rotman School of Management in 1998, the concept has evolved significantly over the years. The author, who has worked closely with Roger Martin on his writing and teaching, explains how Integrative Thinking is ultimately about creating new answers to our toughest problems.

High-performers, whether they be star CEOs, world-class salespeople, great product developers or professional services rainmakers, exist at the tail end of the distribution in terms of ability and impact. They have high aptitude, sought-after skills and the ability to ply their trade almost anywhere around the globe. How can leaders engage these brilliant, talented individuals and bring out their very best, sustained performance? Two veteran leaders - Roger Martin in business and Bob Brett in the realm of championship tennis - provide their expertise in this interview.

The authors argue that strategy can be defined and created using a simple framework that entails answering five questions - the same five questions, no matter the type, size or context of the organization.

Integrative thinkers will not accept 'either/or' solutions. In general terms, Integrative Thinking means 'constructively using the tension between opposing models to generate a creative resolution in the form of a new model which contains elements of the existing models, but is superior to each'. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all operation. In this article, which includes examples from Walmart and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the pioneers of Integrative Thinking describe three types of 'integrations' that can lead to creative resolutions to problems.

A few years back, a seminal report came out, warning that India and China were educating thousands more innovators per year than the Western world and urging the U.S. to focus more on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. While this movement has since gained in strength, the authors show that there is little evidence to support it. They argue that great innovators like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg embrace both the Sciences (how things work) and the Arts (how people work), and in addition, they learn to think in ways that enable them to build new models that connect the two spheres. Teaching the model-building skill of Integrative Thinking, they argue, entails going beyond both hysteria about STEM and nostalgia about the Liberal Arts. The central goal of modern education must be the building of an 'integrative capacity', and the country that builds it first and best will enjoy the prosperity benefits.

The authors argue that today's leaders suffer from a common logical fallacy: they tend to see what they want to see and don't ask the harder questions that might lead in other directions. As a result, they fall victim to their own thinking -- to a willingness to 'mash together' competing logics without giving it a second thought. The remedy, they argue, is to dig deeper into the logic of opposing choices, to test your assumptions and explicitly seek to understand the ways in which conditions and consequences are linked. They explain how 'integrative thinkers' explicitly use the tensions between opposing ideas to generate new and better solutions.

The Virtue Matrix, first introduced in a 2002 Harvard Business Review article, is a tool developed by the lead author that provides a concrete, actionable framework for creating a corporate citizenship strategy. The goals of CSR have long been poorly defined and unclear, and as a result, many companies are uncertain of the rules or the benefits of doing what is 'right'. The authors argue that as regulations become tighter and solutions more difficult, the capacity of firms to innovate in this arena will become increasingly valuable. The best organizations, they say, will stand out by fully complying with the laws of their industry and jurisdiction; meeting the highest level of current non-regulated norms; having projects underway in the 'strategic frontier' of the Virtue Matrix; and being an active participant in 'structural frontier' projects as well. In addition to describing the four quadrants of the Virtue Matrix in detail, the authors show how companies can protect the best of what currently is - the civil foundation - and contribute to the expansion of what could be, through activities on the frontier.