Roger Martin

Roger Martin, Dean of Rotman School of Business spoke at World Innovation Forum (#WIF11).

I know Roger and have read most of his books. I even have one on my desk waiting to be read now. He sat on the RIM board with me.

He certainly is an innovative and deep thinker.

"The goal of design thinking is to find the intersection of 100% reliable and 100% validity". He speaks about the intuitive vs analytical thinking. The key is to has both. To do new things you can never prove them in advance.

Reliability people speak a different language than most creative people. They analyze the past to predict the future. One way to "sell" reliability oriented people is to sue analogies from the past. Turn the future into the past. For analytical people, the future counts for nothing.

This means you need to repress the past. Analytical organizations (often these are the big ones) tend to not adjust to the changes which inevitably happens. They need to integrate the "what might be".

This is how the tiny startup can sometimes beat the big giants. "90% of small companies fail in the first year". "Entrepreneurs are delusional but our societies need these dreamers who think they are the one in ten".

The worst killer of innovation is the phrase "prove it". You can never prove any new idea.

My sense is I am very good at intuitive thinking but my engineering study and business background added a high analytic component to my thinking. I still tend to be more intuitive and it has served me well. It means I need to surround myself with highly analytic thinkers.