A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness Hardcover – May 3, 2022

A New Way to Think reminded me of an old joke. In the joke, a man goes to his doctor and says, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” The doctor replies, “Then quit doing that.” <cue the laugh track>That's the premise behind Roger Martin's book, A New Way to Think. He says this in the Introduction.“When executives and managers find that a given framework, general practice, theory, or way of thinking—what I will call a “model” for short—doesn’t lead to the desired outcome, they almost automatically assume that the model in question wasn’t applied rigorously enough.”Naturally, the response to thinking that way is to use the same model but put more effort into it. Martin's response is, “don't do that!” He wants us to step back, review our thinking, and then try something different. Each of the fourteen chapters “compares a dominant but flawed model to an alternative that I argue is superior.” Here’s a list of those chapters.Competition: It happens at the front line, not at the head office.Stakeholders: To actually create shareholder value, put customers before shareholders.Customers: The familiar solution usually trumps the perfect one.Strategy: In strategy, what counts is what would have to be true—not what is true.Data: Creating great choices requires imagination more than data.Culture: You can only change it by altering how individuals work with one another.Knowledge Work: You must organize around projects, not jobs.Corporate Functions: Give them their own strategies.Planning: Recognize that it’s no substitute for strategy.Execution: Accept that it’s the same thing as strategy.Talent: Feeling special is more important than compensation.Innovation: The design of the intervention is as critical as the innovation itself.Capital Investment: Assume that its value is reset as soon as it is embedded.M&A: You need to give value to get value.Each of the chapters is self-contained. That means you can go straight to the chapters that interest you. You can profitably skip chapters that don't address an issue you're concerned with. That’s not the only good thing about the book.Doctor Martin does a great job of putting things in context. There are excellent reviews of how thinking has changed on various issues over decades. There are excellent descriptions of how corporations dealt with various issues. You can almost count these as bonuses.Dr. Martin himself describes the best reason for reading this book in the Afterward.“You won’t learn by continuing to reapply the flawed model and experience its ineffectiveness; you will simply reconfirm that it doesn’t deliver. It’s by trying models, observing the results, and then experimenting with a new model when the promised results don’t materialize that you will embark on a positive learning journey.”In a NutshellIn A New Way to Think: Your Guide to Superior Management Effectiveness, Roger Martin presents new ways to think about some common business situations. Those lessons should shake up your thinking and lead you to try new methods so that your knowledge expands, and your organization’s results improve.

This book repurposes Roget Martin’s HBR articles with emphasis on the need for continuous “integrative thinking” and what I think of as “disciplined agility”. It is an excellent resource for executives and their advisers written by a reflective practitioner. Also, worth reading his masterful 2007 book, “The Opposable Mind”. This earlier book is a primer re how integrative thinking works. It is a still useful field guide re how to think thru complex business challenges. In brief, we need more strategy advisors who think with clients adapting frameworks and approaches in real time in agile yet disciplined ways like Martin does. On a critical note, I would have liked a longer and more substantive Introduction and Afterword linked to case examples, integrative thinking practices, and, importantly, Martin’s own fieldwork driven learnings.

I’ve been following Roger for 10 years now and he’s changed my life! His books, HBR articles and lectures on YouTube facilitate my ability to think critically both personally and professionally.“A New Way To Think” efficiently presents alternatives to cookie cutter “plans” that look good on paper, but don’t require the sophistication necessary to yield truly appropriate results. The book clearly demonstrates true strategy while entertaining with anecdotes and delighting with data.My only critique is that Roger is far too humble when he emphasizes how “there are no right or wrong answers, just better and worse ones.” I personally believe he deserves mad respect for demonstrating his superior expertise! But maybe his modesty is what makes the book resound so true.Please invest in the integrity of your future and read this book (and all of his other ones). Then, to ensure maximum learning, go look him up on YouTube for all the lectures and interviews that compliment them.

I’ve read a lot of management books and this was simple to read and effective. They were broken into case studies that could be read independently which made it easier to digest.In all cases the author’s experience and humility showed through, and his examples were not the same as the ones you see in every other typical management book.

A New Way of Thinking is an excellent and easy to absorb guide to see things from many perspectives and take on board some key mindset shifts that will make a huge difference to any organisation and interpersonal relationship.

It was very joyful to read the new book (a new way to think) for Roger L. Martin ; though most of the chapters were published in HBR earlier.

El decano del managment del siglo XXI vuelve a dejarnos un maravilloso libro donde consolida su experiencia y nos muestra posibles caminos para distintos problemas que podemos afrontar en nuestro camino empresarial, una lectura obligada para empresarios, analistas, consultores y gerentes.

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