The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking

Crisis at AIC (Canadian largest privately-held mutual fund company): AIC adheres to the Warren Buffet investment philosophy, holding only 20 or so stocks vs. hundreds at a traditional fund. During the dot-com bubble, they started losing customers who wanted more aggressive investments. They were faced with the (conventional) choice of abandoning their business model and broadly buying tech stocks, or having to sell and risk a vicious cycle. Instead, they chose to double down by buying heavly into another stock (Mackenzie), which avoided the poor tradeoffs, and turned out to be a winner.

Thomas C. Chamberlin proposed the idea of "multiple working hypothesis" (vs. only considering one at a time) for scientific study.

The Four Seasons: Hotels are typically either small, cozy, budget, with few amenities, or large, wel facilitated, but impersonal. However, the Four Seasons managed to create a model that provided exceptional customer service at a premium price.

P&G: Consumer products are typically either commodities and cheap (store brands), or innovative and premium. P&G sought to be both innovative and low-cost at the same time.

Red Hat: Software is typically either proprietary and high-margin, or "free" (open source) and low-margin. Red Hat created a service-oriented business model that allowed it to effectively profit from open source software.

The basic message seems to be similar to one from Built to Last: "embrace the genius of the AND instead of the tyranny of the OR". The cases are also reminicent of the ones from Blue Ocean Strategy (low-cost AND premium). The trick is to think in new and different dimensions from the conventional wisdom and your competitors.