John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership

Idea 49: The role of synthesis – a holistic approach – in decision making

Decision making requires you to ‘take a view’ and that depends on the ability to combine parts or elements to form a whole: synthesis. Holistic is a useful word to use in this regard, as it also conveys the approach, especially in business, which recognizes that ‘wholes’ are produced by grouping various units together, where it is difficult to analyze them in their parts without losing this wholeness. Hence a holistic view needs to be taken in business decision making.

One difficulty is that analysis can be the enemy of synthesis and vice versa. There is a need in business to be able to see the wood for the trees (holism) rather than only the trees (analysis).

In this sense, ...