Creating Great Choices

by Jennifer Riel

  So we set out to understand how the folks who had come to integrative answers had done it. Was there a particular way they went about resolving the tension? Was there a pattern to be found in the answer they created? We looked back over all the examples of integrative thinking from Roger’s initial interviews and from our students.

  As we did, we found three types of integrations that roughly map to the three conditions and the three critical questions we laid out in chapter 6. These types of integrations may not be the only paths to creative resolution. In fact, we hope that others may be found going forward. But these three pathways represent our best current advice for this stage of the process. They are three directions in which you can start looking for an integrative answer.

  To make the pathways easier to remember, we gave each pathway its own name: the hidden gem, the double down, and the decomposition. Here we explain each in turn, using an example to illustrate what each pathway looks like in practice. We begin with the hidden gem and with a spot of tennis.

  PATHWAY 1: THE HIDDEN GEM

  Tennis isn’t traditionally the sport people think of when they think of Canada. Canadian kids grow up at the hockey rink rather than on the tennis court. Or so it was in 2005. At the time, Canada was all but irrelevant on the global tennis scene. In men’s singles, Canada hadn’t had a top-fifty player for more than twenty years; it had never had a top-ten player. The women’s side wasn’t much better, with only three players in the top fifty since 1985, and only one in the top ten. Compare that record with that of US tennis, which in 2005 alone had two men in the top ten in the world, and three women in the top eleven, including the world number 1.

  Moreover, Canadian players had never made the singles final of a Grand Slam tournament, and only one Canadian had even made a semifinal—Carling Bassett in 1984. There has been only one sustained bright spot for Canadian tennis: Daniel Nestor, who won more than ninety doubles titles, including eight Grand Slams. But Nestor’s success had proven to be more aberration than building block.

  From a business point of view, Tennis Canada, the sport’s national federation, was in a similar state of defeat. The organization had taken on an $18 million debt to upgrade its stadium in Toronto, but only after the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) insisted it do so or risk losing the right to host a Masters-level tournament. The debt load, coupled with its relatively modest revenue sources, meant that Tennis Canada had only $3 million per year to spend on developing its players. In stark contrast, the US, French, Australian, and British tennis federations routinely garnered many times that amount from their Grand Slam events (the US Open, the French Open, the Australian Open, and the Wimbledon Championship—the four most important and profitable tennis tournaments in the world). The Grand Slams gave these four nations far more to spend on tennis development than Tennis Canada could ever hope to have at its disposal.

  Two Opposing Systems

  Against this bleak backdrop, the board of Tennis Canada decided that it was time for Canada to stop accepting stultifying mediocrity and instead become a consistently leading tennis nation. The push began with new board chair Jack Graham, new CEO Michael Downey, and two new board members who would go on to succeed Graham as chair: Tony Eames and Roger Martin (yes, the Roger Martin who coauthored this book). This group explicitly set out to find a new answer and turned its attention to two countries that, along with Russia and Switzerland, had been most successful in producing leading players over the previous twenty-five years: France and the United States. The tennis development models in those two nations represented thoughtfully constructed, broadly influential, and highly opposing approaches. France, on the one hand, had a strictly defined, highly standardized, centralized high-performance development program. Junior players who demonstrated an ability and a desire to win were funneled into the French Federation of Tennis system at a very young age. From that point onward, the French system controlled their tennis lives, including the location and nature of training.

  The United States Tennis Association (USTA), in contrast, operated in a customizable, decentralized, and characteristically American way. It let many flowers bloom, leaving early-stage development to dedicated individuals, and especially to large-scale, for-profit tennis development academies such as the Bollettieri and Saddlebrook academies. At the time, the USTA simply waited for the talented, self-funded, and academy-trained players to rise to the top of the junior heap. When they did, the players would get money, training, and other resources to continue their development in whatever model and location worked best for them.

  Both systems had produced a stream of winning players, but neither could easily be replicated in Canada. Tennis Canada had a fraction of the players, courts, and financial resources of its two competitors. Nonetheless, the board saw that there was something essential to love about each of the opposing systems. They came to deeply value the control of the French system. Centralizing the development of players created a constancy of purpose and strong adherence to a plan for success. In the American system, the most valued benefit was customization. Each US player followed a path to greatness that was specific to what that player needed. Some were nurtured by a driven parent, others grew up at a world-famous academy, and still others worked one-on-one with star coaches. To a great extent, each player charted her own course, creating a strong sense of personal ownership and accountability for success.

  The Best of the Two Models

  The French and American systems had between them many inherent tensions related to structure and mindset. It is hard to imagine being highly centralized and highly decentralized at the same time. But the key benefits of each model—control that drives consistency of purpose, and customization that drives a sense of personal ownership—are not so incommensurable. Might it be possible to build a new tennis development model that started from these twin notions and threw away the rest of the opposing models? That is what Tennis Canada did, building a new model that leveraged the idea of opportunity to get the best of control and customization in very different ways.

  Under the new model, talented youngsters are identified and invited to be part of a staged development program, as they are in France. But Tennis Canada’s program is structured in a much more fluid, customizable, and decentralized way. Identified players younger than fourteen are given access to one of three national training programs, depending on where they live. Periodic weekend training programs are designed to supplement a child’s local club programs and personal coaching. These national training weekends offer elite competition and information on nutrition, fitness, strategy, and so on.

  The weekends enable Tennis Canada to identify and nurture promising athletes without taking full control (and paying the full cost) of their development, in the way the French federation would do. The aim is to locally identify Canadian kids who have the potential for greatness and to help them on that path by giving them access to high-caliber competition and truly world-class coaches, hired from around the world. All the while, control of a child’s development rests largely in his own hands.

  As players begin to compete on the junior circuit, they can transition to the National Tennis Center in Montreal. There, players between the ages of fourteen and seventeen participate in a full-time program under Louis Borfiga, former head of the French federation’s junior national training center. Borfiga’s program is aimed at honing technical, physical, and tactical fundamentals and providing top-level international competitive experiences at the stage when it is most impactful—just before a player turns pro.

  But even as players reach the National Tennis Center stage, the model is not one-size-fits-all, control-at-any-cost. The Tennis Canada Performance Standard Fund enables elite athletes to opt out of the National Tennis Center to work with the coach and program best suited to the athlete, anywhere in the world—and still retain their funding and support.

  Canada’s new model is unique in the world. It begins from two core principles: control and customizati
on. Rather than simply say it would do both, Tennis Canada designed a purpose-built model that embeds the two principles in every development stage, while throwing away the rest of the existing models for high-performance development.

  And the results? On ESPN’s 2016 Wimbledon broadcast, John McEnroe wondered aloud, “Who would have thought Canada would become a tennis superpower?” Canada’s Milos Raonic, then ranked number 7 in the world, was about to play in the men’s final. Eugenie Bouchard, another beneficiary of Tennis Canada’s new integrative strategy, had made the Wimbledon women’s final two years earlier, ranking as high as number 5 in the world. Behind Raonic and Bouchard, a roster of Canadian youngsters stand ready to move on to the world stage. Even though Tennis Canada still has only a fraction of the resources of other federations, it has figured out how to invest those resources in a way that has turned Canada into a truly competitive tennis nation.

  Making Two Elements Work Together

  At the heart of Tennis Canada’s approach are two gems, one plucked from each of the dominant opposing models. The challenge for Tennis Canada was to make these two elements work together in a new and inspired way. This is the hidden gem approach. In this pathway, you take one nugget—one deeply valued benefit—from each of the opposing models and throw away the rest of the existing models. Using the two benefits as the core components of a new model, you imagine a new approach designed around the two gems.

  In the hidden gem pathway, typically the key is to consider the inherent tensions of the model. To find a leverage point and integrate between the two models, you need to understand what points of tension make it untenable to integrate the models in the current context. When you understand that, you can explore how you might create a great integrated choice if you were to throw away those points of tension. For Tennis Canada, this meant building a system around control and customization but eliminating most of the structures that produce those outcomes in France and the United States.

  The Tennis Canada example illustrates one successful implementation of a hidden gem integration. And, as is the case with each of the pathways, the starting point for the integration is a question. The question you ask to search for a hidden gem integration is this: How could we create a new model from our most valued building block from each opposing model, while discarding the rest of each model? To see how to visualize a hidden gem integration, have a look at figures 7-1 and 7-2.

  Try This

  Go back to the problem you have been working on. Ask yourself, If I could have only one core element from each of these models, what would they be? Use the hidden gems to imagine what a better answer could look like, starting with these elements and throwing the rest of the existing models away.

  Figure 7-1. Starting Point for a Hidden Gem

  There are many possible hidden gem integrations for any given choice, depending on which benefits you most value from the models, what you do with those core elements, and what new elements you introduce in your creative resolution. The key to creating a hidden gem integration is to ensure that the two benefits you choose are not in direct tension with one another. In this approach, you’re seeking benefits that are not incommensurable and that allow you to throw away the elements that are in tension. This means that your new model will by necessity have many new components; you’ll need to replace all the elements you’re throwing away with something new. A lot of creativity—imagining new ways to create the benefits you seek—will be required. You’ll need to try a few different combinations and prototype them, rather than settle on any one solution too early.

  Figure 7-2. Visualizing a Hidden Gem

  PATHWAY 2: THE DOUBLE DOWN

  In the card game blackjack (or twenty-one), a player who doubles her bet on a favorable hand is said to be doubling down. Here’s how it works: after two cards have been dealt, a player has the option to double her initial bet, and in exchange the player receives only one additional card. In the simplest terms, this bet makes sense when the player has been dealt cards whose values add up to 9, 10, or 11. In that situation, she is well positioned to get close to (but not greater than) the desired count of 21 with one additional face card. In doubling down, the player is placing an extra bet on a potentially good hand, hoping that the one additional card she gets in return will turn it into a great one.

  In our context, the favorable hand you’re betting on is one of the two opposing models you’ve created: the model that has many benefits you value. For Piers Handling at the Festival of Festivals, this was the inclusive community festival model; for Jack Bogle, it was the customer-driven firm model. In each case, the extra card that comes along with the bet is the one benefit you value most from the opposing model. To double down, you increase your bet on your favored model, actually extending or intensifying the model you like most, in such a way that you get one important benefit from the opposing model.

  At the Festival of Festivals, this meant betting on inclusivity in order to get buzz. Handling added a people’s prize to make his festival more inclusive and, in doing so, generated a tremendous amount of media attention and word of mouth. At Vanguard, doubling down meant betting on customer-centricity in order to increase net returns. Bogle used a low-cost index fund to make his company even more customer-centered and, at the same time, to deliver even greater long-term returns. Both Handling and Bogle dumped overboard almost all features of the nonfavored model in a clever move to get the one thing they wanted from that opposing model.

  In a double down, causality is key. To find a leverage point and integrate between the two models, you need to identify a model you truly love but that is missing one critical element. It is missing something important, and this missing element is what prevents you from simply choosing this model outright (remember, without buzz, the Festival of Festivals was unsustainable). Once you understand your favored model and have identified the one important missing benefit from the opposing model, you need to understand how that single benefit is produced in its current context. You need also to imagine how that single benefit might be produced in a new way, under different conditions, in an extended version of your favored model (a more inclusive festival or a more customer-centered investment fund). Causal modeling is often a key tool to help generate answers in this approach.

  As with a hidden gem, the search for a double down begins with a question. The question you ask here is, Under what conditions could a more intense version of one model actually generate one vital benefit of the other? See a visualization of this approach in figures 7-3 and 7-4.

  Figure 7-3. Starting Point for a Double Down

  Figure 7-4. Visualizing a Double Down

  Try This

  For the problem that you have been working on, try to find a double down solution. Choose one of the models, and explore how you might extend it so as to get one important benefit from the opposing model. Then try flipping it around to double down on the other model. What could a new, integrated choice look like in each case?

  The double down integration is best used when you have initial conditions that favor it—when you truly love one model and value one vital benefit of the other. But as a search mechanism, you can use this approach whether or not these initial conditions exist. To push your thinking, ask how you might extend one model to get a core benefit of the other, no matter how you feel about the two models. Think carefully about what could cause your extended model to produce that desired benefit; what would you have to leverage in a new way? Explore what you would have to do differently to make this new integrated double down model work.

  PATHWAY 3: DECOMPOSITION

  The third pathway to integration is conceptually different from the first two approaches. In both the hidden gem and the double down, you’re working to find new ways to combine the opposing models into a single new model that effectively solves the problem you’ve identified. In both cases, you mix and match elements of the models and also throw a good deal away. In the third approach, decomposition, you actually keep
all or most of the existing models. The key to doing so productively is to reach a different understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve.

  Sometimes you’re faced with two models that are both attractive, or two models you wish could be implemented at the same time, but you can’t see how it is possible. In this context, the challenge is to do two contradictory things at once. The strong temptation is to shrug, put your head down, and hope for the best when you tell the organization to do both.

  Jennifer saw this in spades in a project she conducted with our colleague Darren Karn. The client was a police force interested in bringing integrative thinking into its training programs. At the outset, we conducted a series of interviews with current and former leaders, not only to better understand the organization but also to identify potential stories and challenges we could use in the training modules. We found that a key question for the organization was one that vexes all police forces to some degree: Should officers define their job as serving the community, or should the focus be on enforcing the law? In this case, everyone agreed that the organization should do both—but its leaders struggled repeatedly with the fundamental conflicts that emerged when officers tried to strike the balance day to day, case by case. The opportunity for the organization was to push past the premise that it needed to simply “do both” to understanding how it could do both more effectively than choosing either one. Without answering that question, the organization was asking officers to find a balance on their own. The whole added up to less than a sum of its parts.