Roger L Martin

• University of Toronto

Many managers feel doomed to trade off the futile rigor of ordinary strategic planning for the hit-or-miss creativity of the alternatives. In fact, the two can be reconciled to produce novel but realistic strategies. The key is to recognize that conventional strategic planning, for all its analysis, is not actually scientific-it lacks the careful g...

A few years ago the software development company Intuit realized that it needed a new approach to galvanizing customers. The company's Net Promoter Score was faltering, and customer recommendations of new products were especially disappointing. Intuit decided to hold a two-day, off-site meeting for the company's top 300 managers with a focus on the...

In this paper, we look at the development of the set of core corporate social responsibility (CSR) theories in response to Friedman's ascendancy. We assess the impact of the current economic collapse on theories built on this dialectical framework. Finally, we suggest where we might find new theoretical underpinnings for the next generation of CSR...

The realization of a strategy depends on countless employees. So it's no surprise that when a strategy fails, the reason cited is usually poor execution. But this view of strategy and execution relies on a false metaphor in which senior management is a choosing brain while those in the rest of the company are choiceless arms and legs that merely ca...

What constitutes successful thinking in business? What are some of the techniques used by top business minds in order to solve problems and create value? Diaminds breaks new ground in addressing these questions. Mihnea Moldoveanu and Roger Martin, creators of the Integrative Thinking curriculum at the Rotman School of Management, draw upon case stu...

The MBA is probably the hottest ticket among the current university graduate degree offerings-every year, more than 120,000 students enroll in MBA programs in the United States, and the estimates in Europe do not lag far behind. In addition, job prospects have never looked better for business-school graduates; corporations are hiring more business-...

In search of lessons to apply in our own careers, we often try to emulate what effective leaders do. Roger Martin says this focus is misplaced, because moves that work in one context may make little sense in another. A more productive, though more difficult, approach is to look at how such leaders think. After extensive interviews with more than 50...

It has become commonplace to refer to a "Canadian healthcare system," implying some monolithic system of prevention and care, yet failing to acknowledge its various subsystems, some performing well and some not. This article argues that a more nuanced understanding of healthcare systems, based on the principles of Systems Theory, provides a useful...

For much of the twentieth century, labor and capital fought bitterly for control of the industrialized economy. The titans of industry ultimately won a resounding victory over the unions, but the story doesn't end there. In today's economy, value is largely the product of knowledge and information. Companies cannot generate profits without the idea...

Executives who want to make their organizations better corporate citizens face many obstacles: If they undertake costly initiatives that their rivals don't embrace, they risk eroding their company's competitive position. If they invite government oversight, they may be hampered by costly regulations. And if they adopt wage scales and working condit...