Moving Beyond Either-Or Decision-Making

Summary

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HBR On Leadership: Moving Beyond Either-Or Decision-Making

Host: Harvard Business Review
Guest: Jennifer Riel, co-author of Creating Great: A Leader’s Guide to Integrative Thinking, faculty at the Rotman School of Management
Date: September 24, 2025

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Overview

This episode explores how leaders can move beyond the familiar “either-or” decision-making paradigm to make stronger, more innovative choices using integrative thinking. Guest Jennifer Riel demonstrates, with case studies from the film industry (including LEGO and the Toronto International Film Festival), how seeking better answers—rather than merely choosing between trade-offs—can drive organizations to superior outcomes. She also walks listeners through the four-stage methodology behind integrative thinking, offering practical advice for leaders facing intractable choices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The LEGO Movie: A Case Study in Integrative Thinking

• Background (01:31–02:56): The LEGO Movie’s blockbuster success is contrasted with LEGO’s earlier failed film, Adventures of Clutch Powers, which prioritized strict brand control (with a “boring and not very successful” result).
• Main Dilemma (03:12–05:12):
  • Trade-off:
    • Maintain strict creative control (protect brand but stifle creativity)
    • Or, give filmmakers creative freedom (risk brand but enable a possibly great movie)
  • Most companies settle for a compromise or optimize for one side.
• LEGO's Solution (05:12–08:21):
  • CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp insisted on hiring great filmmakers—but asked those directors to immerse themselves with the most passionate LEGO fans before production.
  • This created a new, integrative answer: filmmakers were entrusted creatively, but also inspired to safeguard the brand from the inside.
  • Notable Insight: The filmmakers’ deep dive into fan culture led to movie plot points (e.g., the taboo against using glue among LEGO fans).
• Quote:

  “If I want great talent … they’re gonna have to have control … But if I'm gonna do that, I can ask for something that I believe is gonna make a better answer. … Spend time not with me, but with LEGO's most committed fanatical customers.” — Jennifer Riel (06:15)

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2. What Organizations Usually Do

• Typical Response (08:21–09:43):
  • Companies commonly treat such choices as “optimization” problems, endlessly analyzing compromises or building an uninspiring “Frankenstein” consensus.
  • Riel argues that sometimes no existing option is acceptable and “making the trade-off is unacceptable.”
• Integrative Thinking Defined:
  • Leveraging the tension of opposing ideas (rather than compromising), with the belief that the creative process through disagreement leads to better, novel solutions.

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3. Another Film Industry Example: Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)

• Context (12:11–13:13):
  • TIFF, once an inclusive, unprofitable local festival, faced a choice: remain accessible or become exclusive like Cannes.
• Integrative Approach (13:14–15:13):
  • CEO Piers Handling asked: “Why even make that trade-off?”
  • By elevating the audience prize, TIFF harnessed the city’s diverse film fans as an asset, making the festival both inclusive and a market predictor for Oscar winners (e.g., Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech).
• Quote:

  “We measure the success of our festival against many factors… the films, the audience reaction … talent that emerges … attention from the industry and the media.” — Piers Handling (13:18)

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4. The Four-Stage Integrative Thinking Process

(15:14–18:19)

Stage 1: Define and Explore Opposing Models (15:16)

• Get clear about the real problem and why current options are unsatisfactory.
• Take two opposing approaches to their logical extremes and fall in love with each—recognizing what’s valuable in both.
• Quote:

  “Force yourself not to find the balance.” — Kurt Nikish (16:53)
  “Engineers do this … provoke new thinking.” — Jennifer Riel (17:04)

Stage 2: Hold Models in Tension (17:04–17:49)

• Examine the side-by-side models: Where do outcomes overlap? What are their true distinctions?
• Probe for new insight by seeing similarities and unique strengths.

Stage 3: Generate Possibilities (17:49–18:10)

• Ask: “What do I really value? Could I create something better that combines these assets?”
• Brainstorm several new answers, pushing past the original options.

Stage 4: Test and Iterate (18:10–18:19)

• Prototype new approaches, gather real-world feedback, and refine solutions progressively.

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5. Common Pitfalls and Signals for Success

• Where Organizations Get Stuck (18:22–19:18):
  • Avoiding the process altogether and making default trade-offs.
  • Failing to immerse in both models equally.
  • Rushing through model comparison as a perfunctory checklist instead of engaging deeply.
  • Not allowing enough time for genuine creative tension.
• How to Know It's Working (19:18–20:46):
  • Emotional signals: developing “genuine affection for the two models,” encountering constructive complexity, and spotting new possibilities.
  • Progress is indicated by discovering solutions that feel meaningfully better than what you started with.
• Quote:

  “If you really are able to push yourself to have genuine affection for the two models … that is a good sign that it’s working.” — Jennifer Riel (19:30)
  “Some of it’s managerial judgment. If this were an algorithm, it wouldn’t be all that valuable to you … it’s a process…” — Jennifer Riel (20:36)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Settling vs. Creating:

  “Most companies would have done what LEGO did the first time … and be surprised when the movie's not very good… You end up producing the result that you were trying to avoid.” — Jennifer Riel (08:23)

• On Iterative Prototypes:

  “Can you actually test those prototypes as you roll them out?” — Jennifer Riel (18:16)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:31 — Introduction of the LEGO Movie as a case study.
• 03:12 — The creative control dilemma at LEGO.
• 06:15 — LEGO’s integrative solution: filmmaker immersion.
• 12:11 — TIFF’s challenge and integrative approach.
• 15:16 — Jennifer Riel outlines the four-stage process.
• 19:18 — Discussion of emotional cues that indicate progress in this unfamiliar process.
• 20:46 — Episode close.

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is rich in illustrative storytelling and practical how-to, delivered with warmth and curiosity. Riel favors optimism and creativity—encouraging leaders to fall in love with tough problems and trust the process of holding tensions, rather than defaulting to compromise or trade-offs.

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Summary

Rather than simply choosing between two unsatisfactory options or compromising, leaders can use integrative thinking to generate innovative solutions that transcend trade-offs. By thoroughly exploring opposing models, holding them in creative tension, seeking new combinations, and testing ideas iteratively, organizations can produce results that protect their core values and achieve breakthrough creative or business outcomes.

Transcript

[Jennifer Riel]

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[Kurt Nikish]

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[Amanda Kersey]

Welcome to HBR on leadership case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts. Hand selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. I'm HBR Senior editor and producer Amanda Kersey. In this 2017 HBR IdeaCast conversation, you'll hear how leaders move beyond either or decisions to make stronger choices. The same approach can help you address trade offs in your own organization. You know, I remember host Kurt Nikish and I having a great time producing this episode. The beginning still makes me smile.

[Jennifer Riel]

Everything is awesome. Oh my gosh, I love this song.

[Kurt Nikish]

If you don't know that music, it's the theme song from the Lego Movie. The animated film grossed nearly a half billion dollars in 2014. And it also breathed new life into the brand. People loved seeing the little plastic pieces of their childhood in action. The hero, Emmett, falls down a hole one day into the LEGO underground.

[Amanda Kersey]

Prophecy states that you're the person in the universe.

[Jennifer Riel]

That's you, right?

[Kurt Nikish]

Uh, yes, that's me. Behind the scenes, the LEGO group went through its own adventure. Turns out there's a strategic decision making story behind the blockbuster. And it's a case that Jennifer Riel and her co author Roger Martin study in their new book, Creating Great A Leader's Guide to Integrative Thinking. Riel teaches at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. She also loves movies. So today she's here to talk about integrative thinking through the lens of the film industry. Jennifer, thanks for coming in and talking with the HBR IdeaCast.

[Jennifer Riel]

It's my pleasure. Happy to be here.

[Kurt Nikish]

So the Lego Movie, amazing success. But it could have turned out much differently, right?

[Jennifer Riel]

Absolutely. And interesting enough, I didn't know until I had the chance to talk to Jorgen Vic Nudstrup, who was the CEO of LEGO at the time, that there had actually been a previous iteration of a Lego Movie. They'd actually made a Lego Movie before the LEGO Movie.

[Kurt Nikish]

I didn't know about this either.

[Jennifer Riel]

I was fascinated. It's called the Adventures of Clutch Powers and it had come out of the fact that Lego for a long time, I mean, they make the little plastic bricks that we all grew up with it's been a successful brand for decades, which is kind of amazing for a little company in Europe. And they had started getting into branded co branded entertainment. So like Harry Potter, Lego games or Star Wars, Lego games would be the, the most popular example. And so it was inevitable someone was eventually going to come and say let's do a movie about Lego and maybe let's have it be original, not tied to another entertainment brand. And so they did. They created this adventures of Clutch Powers and they partnered in a way that most companies would, which was they prioritized the protection of the brand. So they had final sign off on the script and on all of the filmmakers. And they made sure that it was true to the brand and that it protected the company. And as Jorgen will say with a laugh, it was really boring and not very successful, not a very successful film, not very successful for the company. So they were approached again from a Hollywood studio saying let's really do this, let's really make the Lego movie. And they were confronted with what do we do? The last time it didn't work right. And we prioritized that we should have creative control. That was a huge bone of contention because they recognized that part of the challenge is getting really great talent who would be willing to work on a project for which the company had creative control. They wanted talent that would create a really great movie. To do that, the hypothesis would be you've got to give total creative control to that talent. You, you will not get great directors, great filmmakers if they feel they're gonna beholden to a corporate interest. Like they're uncomfortable enough being beholden to the studio, let alone to a company. So this question of how do we tackle the seeming trade off, the either or choice between maintaining absolute strict creative control but probably giving up the ultimate quality creativity of the film versus give someone else total creative control. You'll probably get a great film out of it. But that's a huge risk to take for the reputation of the company because who knows what they're gonna do.

[Kurt Nikish]

Meet in the middle, the happy medium.

[Jennifer Riel]

Absolutely. You can imagine all kinds of compromises in between where you really aren't thrilled with the answer, but you can live with it. And very often leaders frame the problem of trade offs in that way. Michael Porter, the father of all strategy, tells us, strategy's making trade offs. You can't be everything to everyone. And that's true. You absolutely have to make trade offs as a leader. What we found, Lego is a great example of this. Jorgen is a great example of this is that there are some problems for which making the trade off is unacceptable. If I make the trade off, I lose. If I make the trade off, it's not going to solve the problem. And it is in that situation where you ask yourself, could there be a better way? Could I imagine doing something either than choosing the either, or finding the barely acceptable compromise and actually seek to create a better choice, something new that doesn't exist today that might actually solve the problem, be great for the organization. And in Jorgen's case, he was really clear. I want a really amazing movie, an awesome movie, if you will, but I also want it to be awesome for lego, right? I want LEGO to be better off from having engaged in this process. He looked at the challenge and realized that on creative control, ultimately he did have to make the choice that, look, if I want great talent, really great talent, not good enough talent, they're gonna have to have control of the script, of everything that they do, of the casting of the film itself. And yeah, they may give us the right to review it, but actually we need to trust them and they need to see that we trust them. But if I'm gonna do that, I can ask for something that I believe is gonna make a better answer. And the thing he asked for was their time before they started working on the movie. And he said, what I would like you to do is spend time not with me, but with LEGO's most committed fanatical customers. Going to the fan conventions. I want you to spend time with kids as they play with lego. I want you to spend time talking to these super fans and understanding what LEGO means to them. Essentially, he was finding a way to. To help these filmmakers fall in love with the brand the way that a kid does. And if he could do that, if he could get them to fall in love with Lego, then they would protect the brand. They would be the ones who were dedicated to its preservation, and they would create an amazing movie that held LEGO at its heart. What's kind of cool about the engagement that they had with the adult fans in particular? I didn't know this, but. But apparently the one thing that is absolutely forbidden, even amongst the adult LEGO fans, you're never allowed to use glue, because the spirit of LEGO is building, taking it apart and building it again. And so that insight about fans and how they feel about LEGO becomes a plot point in the movie. They now build a huge part of the narrative around how evil it is to use glue. And this better answer produces the LEGO movie.

[Kurt Nikish]

What would most companies have Done.

[Jennifer Riel]

What most companies would have done is what Lego did the first time, treat it as an optimization problem, figure out what is it we want. We want a movie that protects the brand, probably even prioritize that over the notion of it being a good movie. Make their own interests paramount over the interest of the viewer and be surprised when the movie's not very good. And it actually makes people think less of the brand anyway. Sort of the catch 22, you end up producing the result that you were trying to avoid. I think lots of organizations tend to either just make the trade off or lay out the possibilities, analyze those possibilities endlessly. Right. We hear about these meetings that go on and on and you get progressively less excited about all of the answers as you analyze them. But as you do that, you then start to say, okay, we can't just choose one or the other. Let's build the Frankenstein option, the consensus option, where we can all live with this as a solution. It's not gonna thrill anyone, it's not gonna be great, but at least no one's gonna get fired. When we talk about integrative thinking, it's this idea of leveraging the tension of opposing ideas, leveraging the disagreement. And it's not that you wanna stay in disagreement forever. You ultimately wanna create a great answer that we can achieve consensus around. But it's a fundamental belief that you have to go through the challenge or the tension of disagreement to get there.

[Kurt Nikish]

I mean, I think of this almost as like the getting to yes book. Getting up with solutions in negotiations that end up making both sides happier than they ever imagined. Even like walking into the situation. And you're saying that that's kind of possible if you apply integrative thinking to business problems.

[Jennifer Riel]

Yeah, I love the idea of getting to yes and it's delightful. Not every problem is going to be well suited to this way of thinking. There are lots of great thinking and decision making tools, and if you have some that you love and that work really well for you, keep using them. We endorse all of these. Think about it as being particularly useful. When you look at the problem in front of you, you look at the possibilities or the options that are laid out, you look at the trade off and you say, I'm just not willing to make that trade off. I just, I can't imagine making that choice. I need a better answer. It's one thing to say I need to do something other than choose here. And it's another to actually have a methodology coming up.

[Kurt Nikish]

We're going to break down that methodology and talk through the stages of integrative thinking. But first I'm going to talk about another real world example from the movies. Meet Rovo, your AI Powered teammate. Rovo connects to your organization's knowledge and lives on Atlassian's trusted and secure platform. Connect Rovo to your favorite SaaS apps to get the personalized context you need to unleash AI with AI powered search, chat agents and studio. Get started with Rovo, your new AI teammate powered by [e-mail].

[Amanda Kersey]

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[Kurt Nikish]

In the 1990s, the Toronto International Film Festival TIFF for short, screened a few hundred movies. It was basically for film lovers, for everyone. It sold a lot of tickets, but it wasn't really profitable. And that was the challenge facing Pierce Handling when He became Festival CEO in 1994. Handling thought about the Cannes Film Festival is another model. It's exclusive. It's got this juried prize, the Palm Door Khan gets tons of news coverage, lots of star names, plenty of sponsorship money. Most executives would look at tiff's challenge as an optimization question, right where, on the scale between community and exclusivity is the best place to be to balance ticket sales and sponsorship money? But the new CEO asked himself, why even make that trade off? Is there a way to get the benefits of both? To keep TIFF just as inclusive, but make it more buzz worthy too. That's where integrative thinking came to play. Here's handling in 2012.

[Amanda Kersey]

We measure the success of our festival against many factors. It is the films we showcase, the audience reaction to those films, the talent that emerges, and the attention the films attract from the industry and the media.

[Kurt Nikish]

What Handling really figured out is that Toronto's huge, diverse audience of filmgoers wasn't a liability, they were actually an asset. Take Slumdog Millionaire. It won the People's Choice Award and then went on to win eight Oscars.

[Jennifer Riel]

Ladies and gentlemen, what a player.

[Kurt Nikish]

Two years later, the King's Speech took the audience prize.

[Jennifer Riel]

It was your Earliest memory. I'm not here to discuss personal matters.

[Kurt Nikish]

Why are you here then?

[Jennifer Riel]

Because I bloody well stammer.

[Kurt Nikish]

And four Academy Awards. Turns out Tiff's audience is a powerful market predictor.

[Jennifer Riel]

It's now the case that if you have a movie you think might win an Academy Award, you bring it to Toronto, you see how the audience responds. A film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had come into Toronto with the studio. Not quite sure. I mean, if someone had said to you, in the year 2000, the big hit movie of the year is gonna be a Mandarin language film in which warriors dance on treetops. Right. Not many people are gonna say american audiences are gonna love that. But Toronto audiences did and adored the film. And so they were able to look back at what had been predictive about the audience in the past and say, if we really elevate this idea of an audience prize, make it really central, we believe based on prior evidence, that it's more likely to be successful. But this is a case where they made a bit of a bigger bet and it was in part because what they were doing wasn't working. And sometimes you just have to be pragmatic. How do we start doing this and see whether it's going to be more successful? I think in Piers's case, he didn't have a ton to lose by trying an audience prize and seeing whether it was actually going to produce the outcome that he cared about.

[Kurt Nikish]

So let's break this down.

[Jennifer Riel]

Yes.

[Kurt Nikish]

How do you do it?

[Jennifer Riel]

It's a four stage process. Stage one, get clear about what your problem is. You find a problem you think is worth solving, where you believe the answers in front of you aren't good enough. Some of them fall into the category of eternal organizational tensions. Number of organizations I've worked with where structure, they're like, all right, we were completely centralized structure and we were slow to move. So we decentralized, we moved decision making out into the organization, and that didn't work terribly well for us. We found that while there were moments of great interaction with consumers, we were doing things in one part of the organization very, very different than others. We'd lost efficiencies, we lost economies of scale. And very often in organizations, they'll say, well, centralization didn't really work very well. Decentralization definitely didn't work very well. And the pendulum just swings back to centralization again. And it's the definition of insanity at that point. Well, if it didn't work before, it's pretty probably not going to work this time either. And so the idea of saying, if you've been solving the problem over and over in the organization, or if you feel an eternal tension like centralization and decentralization or standardization and customization or those eternal tensions are often problematic because the choices aren't good enough. Right. We know we need both. We just can't figure out the how. In step one, what we want to do is take that problem and explore two very opposing ways of solving it. So we would dive very deeply into. All right, if we were totally centralized, what would that look like? Let's describe that just so we all know what we're talking about. Totally decentralized and pushing them out to extremes, because that's where the most tension is. We can't be totally centralized and totally decentralized at the same time.

[Kurt Nikish]

Right. Force yourself not to find the balance.

[Jennifer Riel]

Exactly.

[Kurt Nikish]

Engineers do this, right? When they test things. They're like, what would happen if labor costs go to zero? Like, how would you design a warehouse that way? Or whatever.

[Jennifer Riel]

Absolutely. And it provokes new thinking. We then try to fall in love with each of those models. Opening your mind to understanding what is truly great about that choice. What does it get us that might be helpful in building the better answer? Step two, here's where we actually hold them in tension. Right? Here's where we look at them together, and we essentially push ourselves to see what we see, to notice what we notice. Where are they more similar in terms of outcomes than we might have expected? Where are their true distinctions or points of difference? A really great outcome from model A that just doesn't exist in model B. This is stage three. Right. Generate possibilities. What could a better answer look like? And in some ways, you just ask that question, what do I really value? And could I imagine creating something out of the things that I truly value? And so ultimately, you'd want to generate a few answers so that you're not just focused on one. Step four, how could you try your new models? See how an audience or a customer base or a shareholder group reacts and then continue to move forward with that as a possibility. So instead of just saying, we're done, let's launch, can you actually test those prototypes as you roll them out?

[Kurt Nikish]

At which step do most companies stumble?

[Jennifer Riel]

So I think that there are a couple of places that are challenging. Sometimes there is an inclination not to do this at all. Right. Just make the trade off. Sometimes it's hard to fall in love with one of the models because you already really like one. And so it's important to bring people into the room who can help push your thinking. Sometimes they'll get stuck on examining the models by just treating it as a checklist. We've got 15 minutes. What's similar? What's different? What assumptions and sort of be a little dogmatic and just push through those. Part of this is recognizing that pushing forward to new ideas doesn't happen on an immediate timeline. Right. Giving yourself a bit of time and room to walk away from the problem and come back to it. Certainly if you've got an afternoon and that's all you can spend on it, you can make progress. But best practice would be convening the group a couple of times to go through the different stages at different points in time so you've had some time to think.

[Kurt Nikish]

How do you know when you know in the middle of this like unfamiliar process that you're on the right track? What are signs that you're succeeding? What are signs that would tell you you gotta start over?

[Jennifer Riel]

So I think they're largely emotional. In stage one, if you really are able to push yourself to have genuine affection for the two models, get to a place where you say, I understand why someone would choose these. There's something good in it that is a good sign that it's working. When you're examining the models, if you feel a little in the weeds of the complexity, you do need to dive into the complexity of this in order to push yourself forward. If you feel like you see something new that you didn't see before, it might not be earth shattering, it might not be world changing, but something that I didn't recognize before I started this process that might push me in a new direction. And then in terms of the possibilities, is it better than what I started with? Have I made progress? Have I produced something that I believe does a better job of solving the problem than where I began? And as you're testing, am I actually making this idea better? Am I learning as I go? Am I producing an answer that I'm excited about? Some of it's managerial judgment. If this were an algorithm, it wouldn't actually be all that valuable to you. It is a process or a methodology that you can follow that paired with your own understanding of your business, with your own leadership acumen, enables you to tackle problems in a different way.

[Kurt Nikish]

Jennifer Riel, thanks so much for taking us through this process.

[Jennifer Riel]

It's my pleasure. Foreign.

[Amanda Kersey]

We'Ll be back next Wednesday with another hand picked conversation from Harvard Business Review. If this episode helped you, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow the show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're there, consider leaving us a review. And when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books and videos with the world's top business and management experts, find it [e-mail] this episode was produced by Kurt Nickish and me. Amanda Kersey on Leadership's team includes Maureen Hoch, Rob Eckhart, Erica Trexler, Tina Toby, Mack, Ramsey Kabaz, Nicole Smith, and Ann Bartholomew. Music by Coma Media. Thanks for listening. KPMG makes the difference by creating value like developing strategic insights that help drive M and a success, or embedding AI solutions into your business to sustain competitive advantage. KPMG make the difference. Learn more at www.kpmg.us/insights.