PDF Summary:Creating Great Choices, by Jennifer Riel and Roger L. Martin

When faced with tough decisions, most of us choose the least bad option from whatever alternatives we’re given—then wonder why we’re still unsatisfied. But what if you could create better choices rather than simply picking between the existing ones? In Creating Great Choices, business professors Jennifer Riel and Roger L. Martin reveal a systematic approach called integrative thinking that transforms how you handle difficult decisions by using the tension between opposing ideas as fuel for breakthrough solutions.

Instead of accepting painful trade-offs or lukewarm compromises, you’ll learn a four-stage process for generating genuinely superior alternatives—whether you’re navigating career decisions, resolving workplace conflicts, or tackling complex organizational challenges. We’ll also explore how integrative thinking connects to everything from quantum physics to Zen Buddhism, examine why workplace power dynamics often undermine the collaborative process, and reveal how cultural differences shape the decision-making capabilities Riel and Martin consider universal.

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(Shortform note: Research shows that groups’ emphasis on speed and consensus creates systematic problems in their decisions. Under time pressure, they focus on information everyone knows and ignore insights of the minority, while the need for harmony makes people keep their doubts to themselves. When people make decisions in groups, they also feel less responsible for outcomes, which reduces their critical thinking even as they feel like they’re making a rigorous decision. But researchers say these problems aren’t inevitable: For example, groups make better decisions when they prioritize accuracy over consensus. This may involve deliberately slowing down: Much of the time, our decisions can’t be both fast and accurate.)

The Three Missing Ingredients

Effective decision-making requires three capabilities that are typically absent from both individual and organizational processes—abilities that Riel and Martin argue are central to integrative thinking.

Metacognition: Think about your thinking. This skill helps you develop awareness of your mental models and their limitations. The authors argue that most people have never been taught to examine their reasoning processes explicitly. You know what you think, but you rarely consider how you think or why you think it. Developing metacognitive awareness allows you to recognize when your mental models might constrain your view of possibilities and creates space to consider alternative approaches.

Empathy: Genuinely understand how others see the world. This goes far beyond acknowledging that people disagree, according to Riel and Martin. It requires investing real effort to understand the logic behind alternative perspectives, especially when they differ from yours. When you can appreciate why someone else’s viewpoint makes sense to them, you gain access to insights that can enrich your understanding and reveal new possibilities you couldn’t generate alone.

Creativity: Systematically generate new alternatives. Most people think of creativity as a mysterious talent possessed by artists and inventors, but the authors explain it’s actually a learnable set of skills for connecting ideas in novel ways. Effective creativity requires giving yourself permission to explore possibilities that might seem impractical initially, building on existing ideas to create something new, and maintaining patience with the messiness of the creative process.

Cultural Differences in the “Three Missing Ingredients”

While Riel and Martin present metacognition, empathy, and creativity as skills that are lacking in most individual and group decision-making, research suggests these capabilities vary across cultures. What the authors describe as missing ingredients may actually reflect the cultural background of their primarily Western audience. Here’s how each ingredient varies across cultures:

Metacognition: In societies that emphasize group success over individual recognition and prefer to avoid ambiguous situations, people tend to develop stronger metacognitive abilities. This is likely because they learn to carefully evaluate their own thinking to avoid letting down the group. For example, Chinese study participants outperform British participants in metacognitive tasks, showing a greater ability to recognize their errors and adjust their confidence accordingly. Portuguese people have even higher metacognitive efficiency than Chinese participants, while Saudi Arabian participants show lower levels.

Empathy: What feels like empathic behavior in one culture can come across as rude or intrusive in another. For example, Americans show empathy through direct eye contact and verbal expressions of concern, but in Japanese culture, prolonged eye contact is offensive. Additionally, research shows that people from cultures that emphasize group harmony have much higher empathy for people they see as part of their group compared to those from cultures that prioritize individual achievement. This suggests empathy isn’t just an individual skill—it’s shaped by whether your culture teaches you to think of yourself as independent or as part of a larger community.

Creativity: While Western cultures celebrate new ideas and the ability to “think outside the box,” Eastern cultures care more about whether ideas are useful and benefit society. For example, when Korean study participants work on creative tasks, they show more activity in brain regions that filter and control ideas compared to Israeli participants, and this extra filtering correlates with lower scores on Western creativity measures. This doesn’t mean Korean participants are less creative: It means they learn to automatically screen out ideas that might be seen as too disruptive or socially inappropriate.

How to Create Better Options

The limitations we’ve explored—mental models, cognitive biases, and flawed organizational processes—aren’t inevitable features of the decision-making process. Riel and Martin have developed a systematic approach that transforms how you handle difficult decisions by treating the tension between opposing ideas as fuel for creativity rather than a problem to solve.

Stage 1: Articulate Opposing Models

Begin by writing a brief problem statement that captures the specific challenge you’re trying to solve. Riel and Martin recommend framing this as “How might we...” rather than “Should we...” or “Can we...” Make sure everyone involved understands and agrees that this particular problem is worth solving. ​​Next, identify two solutions that represent opposite extremes. The authors emphasize that you shouldn’t settle for variations that are only slightly different.

For instance, imagine that your company is struggling with workplace policies after experiencing the benefits and drawbacks of remote work during the pandemic. Rather than debating whether workers should be “mostly remote with some office days” versus “mostly in-office with some flexibility,” push to complete opposites: “All employees must work from home with no physical office space” versus “All employees must be in the office every day.” These alternatives create the tension you need to find creative solutions. You’re not trying to create implementable options: You’re establishing opposing models to highlight different approaches to the challenge.

The Philosophical Roots of Integrative Thinking

Dialectical thinking is the ability to work productively with opposing ideas rather than simply choosing between them or trying to eliminate contradictions. Riel and Martin’s integrative thinking draws from this philosophical tradition. For instance, Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel argued that everything in the world develops through contradictions: Ideas, social institutions, and historical events move forward when opposing forces clash and resolve into something new. If Hegel is correct that reality operates dialectically, then tools like integrative thinking become essential for understanding and navigating the world.

This perspective suggests that people who can work productively with opposing ideas are better equipped to understand how complex systems actually function. Riel and Martin’s methodology essentially teaches this skill in a structured way. When they instruct you to identify two opposite approaches to a problem, you’re creating what Hegel would call a thesis and antithesis. Then you focus on what Hegel called synthesis: finding a resolution that preserves valuable elements from both approaches. Neuroscience research supports this deeper view of integrative thinking as a fundamental capacity for understanding the world: Dialectical thinking engages brain networks for conflict resolution and holistic reasoning.

Stage 2: Examine the Models in Tension

Now explore how each opposing model works and what makes it appealing. The authors explain that this isn’t about listing pros and cons—it’s about genuinely appreciating the logic behind each approach. For each model, ask yourself: How does this create value? What assumptions does it rely on? What cause-and-effect relationships make it work? Spend time understanding why reasonable people would choose each approach before judging which is better. For example, what problems does a remote work policy solve? Does it reduce costs, expand talent access, or improve work-life balance? What benefits does the in-office policy provide? Does it enable collaboration, strengthen company culture, or facilitate mentorship?

(Shortform note: Philosopher Karl Popper argued in his “theory of falsification” that we advance knowledge not by trying to prove our theories correct, but by attempting to disprove them. He also distinguished between truth and certainty: Truth corresponds to reality, while certainty lives in the realm of subjective meaning. When you examine opposing models, you’re stepping away from your certainty about each approach’s pros and cons to search for the truth about the specific mechanisms and relationships that make each model work. This helps explain why integrative solutions often surprise people: They emerge from a new understanding of how different approaches function, not from our initial certainty about which one is “right.”)

Riel and Martin stress that it’s crucial to pay attention to the assumptions behind each model. In our example, the fully remote approach might assume that workers’ productivity isn’t location-dependent and that technology can replicate in-person interactions. The fully in-office model might assume that physical presence is essential for effective teamwork and that remote work inevitably reduces engagement. Look for the specific mechanisms that produce each model’s promised outcomes—understanding these relationships helps you identify which elements will be most important to preserve in your eventual solution.

According to the authors, you’ll often discover that the models aren’t as different as they initially appeared. Both might prioritize employee productivity and satisfaction through different mechanisms, or both might aim to maximize collaboration with different theories about how to achieve it. These underlying similarities provide raw material for creative integration.

(Shortform note: Questioning your assumptions requires cultivating what Zen Buddhism calls “beginner’s mind,” or shoshin. James Clear (Atomic Habits) explains that having a beginner’s mind involves letting go of preconceptions and approaching situations with openness, even when you consider yourself an expert. Expertise makes it harder to see new possibilities: As we build knowledge, we filter information through what we already think we know. A beginner’s mind helps you approach each situation with fresh eyes, asking “What if there’s something here that I haven’t considered?” rather than “How does this fit with what I already believe?”)

Stage 3: Explore Creative Possibilities

Now, shift from understanding your existing models to creating new alternatives that resolve the tension between them. This creative phase is where the breakthrough happens, according to Riel and Martin. Rather than accepting the trade-off between your opposing models, you’ll generate entirely new possibilities that capture the best of both approaches. The authors have identified three pathways that can guide this creative exploration, and they recommend using all three to generate multiple possibilities rather than settling on your first idea.

1) The Hidden Gem Pathway: Identify one essential element from each opposing model and discard everything else. Look for the most valuable components that could work together in a new way rather than trying to preserve entire models. In the remote work policy example, you might extract “flexibility and autonomy” from the remote model and “spontaneous collaboration” from the in-office model, then ask: “How might we preserve individual flexibility while enabling spontaneous collaboration?” This could lead you to a solution based on activity-based working—where employees come to the office specifically for collaborative tasks like brainstorming sessions or team meetings, but work remotely for focused individual tasks.

(Shortform note: Riel and Martin’s Hidden Gem Pathway reflects what scientists call combinatorial creativity: the process of connecting seemingly unrelated ideas to generate scientific discoveries. Research shows that the most creative solutions arise when these combinations of ideas are both unexpected and genuinely useful. But the research also reveals a limitation: Most combinatorial attempts fail. Scientists who produce highly creative work also generate proportionally more failed ideas, suggesting that successfully applying the Hidden Gem Pathway requires both the patience to make multiple attempts and robust methods for testing which combinations actually work.)

2) The Double Down Pathway: Riel and Martin explain that taking one model to an extreme may actually produce key benefits typically associated with the opposing model. For the remote work example, you might double down on the fully remote model by eliminating physical offices entirely—but invest those cost savings in intensive virtual collaboration tools, regular team retreats, and structured virtual social interactions. This extreme approach to remote work could actually create stronger team connections than a traditional office environment by being more intentional about relationship-building.

(Shortform note: The Double Down Pathway connects to a classical reasoning technique called reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) by taking an idea to its logical extreme. In formal logic, this means pushing an assumption so far that it becomes self-contradictory, thereby proving it false. Riel and Martin show that you can use extremes constructively rather than destructively: Instead of looking for why an idea fails at its limit, you can push one approach to its maximum to get the benefits of the opposite approach. This suggests that apparent contradictions between opposing models may sometimes dissolve when you stop trying to balance them and instead commit fully to one direction.)

3) The Decomposition Pathway: Break your problem into distinct parts so you can apply different models to separate components. Riel and Martin explain that this path can help you figure out that the best solution to a problem actually involves two different activities or two separate ideas. You might decompose the workplace challenge by function, so that creative and strategic work happens remotely to minimize distractions, while client meetings and training sessions happen in shared spaces. Or you could decompose by career stage: Senior employees who need autonomy work remotely, while junior employees who benefit from mentorship and cultural immersion work primarily in-office with managers.

Why Some Problems Split Cleanly—and Others Don’t

In computer science, breaking complex problems into manageable parts is considered a fundamental process. Programmers routinely practice this skill, which they call “problem decomposition.” It helps them tackle everything from sorting algorithms to building video games, by identifying distinct components that can be developed independently.

However, successful decomposition requires knowing how to identify the right “breaking points” and manage interdependencies between the separate parts. In object-oriented programming, for example, developers have to carefully define how different modules will communicate with each other while maintaining their independence. This suggests that Riel and Martin’s decomposition pathway might work best when you can clearly separate components that have minimal overlap, but it may be more challenging when the parts of your problem are tightly interconnected.

Stage 4: Assess and Refine Your Solutions

Lastly, you’ll turn from creating ideas to testing and refining them in the real world. Riel and Martin recommend that rather than trying to prove your solutions will work, focus on learning what conditions would make them successful and what assumptions might need adjustment. This stage involves three key activities that help you move from creative possibilities to practical implementation.

1) Make your possibilities concrete through storytelling, visualization, or simple prototypes. Riel and Martin emphasize that the more tangible you make your ideas, the easier it becomes to spot potential problems and improvement opportunities. For example, if your workplace policy solution involves activity-based working, create a detailed story about how it would work for a specific employee during a typical week—when they’d choose to work remotely, what would bring them to the office, and how they’d coordinate with teammates. If it involves different policies for different roles, draw a diagram showing how various team members would interact across locations.

2) Identify what would have to be true for each possibility to succeed. Riel and Martin recommend evaluating what conditions, resources, or changes would be necessary. It’s also useful to identify what assumptions you’re making about how people will respond or how systems will function. For your workplace solution, you might assume that employees will be able to effectively decide when to work remotely and when to come into the office, or that managers can maintain team cohesion across different work locations. These requirements help you understand what to test and monitor as you move forward.

3) Design small experiments to test your critical assumptions rather than implementing full solutions immediately. According to Riel and Martin, you should embrace iteration and refinement throughout this process—your first version of any creative solution will be imperfect, and the goal is to learn quickly and improve based on real-world feedback. If your workplace solution depends on employees making good decisions about when to collaborate in person, test this with a small team for a month. If it requires new technology or coordination processes, create a limited trial to see how they work in practice.

The Scientific Method as a Model for Testing Solutions

Riel and Martin’s approach to testing solutions closely mirrors the scientific method that researchers use to test hypotheses. The scientific method involves making observations, forming a testable hypothesis, making predictions about what should happen if the hypothesis is correct, and then designing experiments to test those predictions against real-world evidence. Scientists deliberately try to identify what would have to be true for their hypothesis to succeed, then test those critical assumptions through controlled experiments.

This process translates easily to the sort of decision-making Riel and Martin explore. When you make your solution concrete, you’re creating a testable hypothesis about how your solution will work. When you identify what conditions would need to be true for your solution to succeed, you’re making your assumptions explicit and testable, and when you design small experiments to test those assumptions, you’re following the lead of scientists who use controlled studies to test specific aspects of theories, rather than entire frameworks at once.

Additionally, scientists expect their first hypotheses to be imperfect and that they’ll have to use the results of their experiments to refine their thinking—the same mindset Riel and Martin recommend for testing creative solutions. Perhaps most importantly, scientists have learned that the most powerful experiments are those that could potentially disprove their working hypothesis, because science advances by testing ideas that could be proven false. This same logic applies to testing business solutions: The most valuable experiments are those that could reveal fundamental flaws in your approach, not just confirm what you already believe.

Develop the Right Mindset for Integrative Thinking

Successfully applying this four-stage methodology requires you to cultivate specific mindsets and practices that support creative problem-solving. Riel and Martin identify several elements that work together to enable breakthrough thinking:

Embrace complexity and delay closure. The authors recommend resisting your natural tendency to jump quickly to solutions or choose sides in debates. Creative possibilities emerge from tolerating tension and ambiguity longer than feels comfortable, so practice staying curious about opposing viewpoints even when they conflict with your initial preferences.

Build genuine empathy for different perspectives. According to Riel and Martin, this goes beyond intellectual acknowledgment that people disagree. Take time to understand why alternative viewpoints make sense to those who hold them—observe people in their natural environments, engage them in conversation to understand their experiences, and when possible, put yourself in situations where you can experience their challenges directly.

Cultivate systematic creativity through deliberate practice. The authors emphasize that creativity isn’t random inspiration—it’s a systematic process of connecting ideas in new ways. Start by giving yourself permission to explore possibilities that seem impractical initially, then build on existing ideas rather than trying to create from nothing. Create quick prototypes and mock-ups to make abstract ideas more concrete, and allow time for ideas to develop rather than rushing to immediate solutions.

Practice collaborative inquiry with diverse teams. While empathy is something you develop individually, Riel and Martin note that the best integrative solutions typically emerge when teams with diverse perspectives work together to understand different viewpoints. Create psychological safety for everyone on your team to share unconventional ideas and challenge existing assumptions, focusing the group’s energy on understanding rather than defending positions or winning arguments.

Maintain a learning orientation throughout the process. The authors remind readers to view solutions as hypotheses to be tested rather than final answers to be defended. Stay open to modifying your approach based on new information or changing circumstances, since even successful integrative solutions may need adjustment as conditions evolve.

The Science Behind Tolerating Uncertainty

While Riel and Martin’s advice to embrace complexity sounds straightforward, it can be difficult to apply in practice because our brains are wired to seek quick resolution and avoid ambiguity. Both Buddhist philosophy and complexity theory offer insight into why this discomfort is productive and how to work with it skillfully. Complexity theory—the study of how simple interactions create unpredictable patterns—reveals that the most creative and adaptive systems exist at “the edge of chaos,” the zone between rigid order and complete randomness, where new patterns can emerge.

This scientific framework validates core Buddhist concepts like interdependence (the idea that all phenomena arise through interconnected relationships) and the recognition that apparent contradictions often point to deeper truths that transcend “either/or” thinking. Both intellectual traditions share a fundamental insight: By staying present with complexity and ambiguity, we open ourselves to discovering new aspects of reality that our quick judgments often miss. Complex systems are inherently difficult to understand, and that’s natural—rushing to conclusions prevents us from seeing the innovative solutions that can emerge from sustained attention and an ongoing engagement with uncertainty.

Rather than seeing the tension between opposing viewpoints as a problem to manage, both traditions treat it as fertile ground for discovery. When building empathy feels difficult, complexity theory shows that diverse perspectives aren’t obstacles but necessary ingredients for problem-solving, just as ecosystems need variety to remain resilient. When systematic creativity feels forced, Buddhist approaches to non-attachment suggest giving ideas space to develop organically rather than pushing for immediate results. And when collaborative inquiry becomes frustrating, both traditions emphasize that understanding often emerges from the process itself, not from any individual’s effort to control the outcome or force a resolution.