Polarity Thinking

How many times have you had a difficult choice to make between two priorities? It might be - should I focus on enjoying today or investing for the future? Or, should I put my energy into giving to others or taking care of myself? These either-or choices are examples of polarity thinking. Our approach to polarity thinking can be an obstacle as we walk into our dreams. The secret to polarity thinking is to change our perspective from either-or to both-and. 

Polarity thinking involves choices about competing values. Polarities are behind many apparently unsolvable dilemmas in our personal lives and in organizations - planning vs. execution, freedom vs. accountability, action vs. reflection, home vs. work. It is important to recognize that each competing value by itself is neither good nor bad but we tend to take sides and this leads to some unintended consequences. 

One of the polarities that operates in my life is being task-oriented vs. people-oriented. I tend to take sides with being task-oriented. That is easy for me to justify. You see being task-oriented is a much more efficient approach which means that I can focus on getting important things done which benefit a lot of people. If I had to focus on people and hold their hand while trying to get these important things done, nothing would ever get done and everybody would suffer. 

Did you see what I just did? The diagram below will show that I did two things to justify my position. First I emphasized the positive (but not the negative) characteristics of being task-oriented. Second, I emphasized the negative characteristics (but not the positive ones) of being people-oriented. 

When I fill in the other two squares of the diagram, it is easy to see how my approach to polarity thinking has led to some unintended consequences. Being task-oriented alienates people leading to increased resistance to what I need to accomplish. Being people-oriented helps me to see an issue from different perspectives and create buy-in in others. 

By changing our perspective on competing values to both-and, there is an opportunity to optimize our approach. That way we can realize the benefits of both competing values. Notice that I said optimize and not balance. You cannot balance competing values but you can optimize them. 

When we continue in an either-or perspective for long enough, we tend to reap the negative consequences of both polarities.

One of the ways we optimize competing values is by identifying trigger points that show us that we are getting too far into the negative effects of one of our competing values. We can then pay attention to the other value. For example, if I am running into opposition with a member of my team (a negative trigger), that is a good sign that I need to slow down on the task, and listen to their concerns (investing in being people-oriented). Chances are that I may see something that I didn't see before (a positive consequence of being people-oriented) and once they are on board the project will move forward quickly again (a positive consequence of being task-oriented).  

While there will always be difficult choices to make, changing our approach to polarity thinking can make some choices easier.  By identifying the competing values and being willing to look at our perspective on the values we hold closely, we will realize more benefits than we thought possible as we walk into our dreams. 

Note: I want to acknowledge the work of Russ Gaskin and Cliff Kayser who first introduced me to polarity thinking in a workshop at the 2011 Systems Thinking Conference in Seattle.

Stories: Refusing the Call

We have already talked about the power of story ... how we have all been provided with the beginning chapter of an incredible story ... how we move from the ordinary world into our dream by recognizing and responding to the unlikely calls that present themselves. You would think that great stories would have the hero or heroine excitedly moving forward at the first sign of opportunity. But that is not usually what happens. Most often the next step is a refusal of the call. This week I want to explore the action of refusing and what part it has in the process of putting the pieces of our dreams together. 

Refusal can take many forms. For Moses in The Prince of Egypt it was: Who am I? What if they don't believe me? Send someone else. For Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit it was: Sorry, I don't want any adventures, thank you. For Simba in The Lion King it was not wanting to face his past. For others it might be: I am too old, or too young. Someone might be disappointed in me, or get angry. I have always done it this way. It is too risky. Who am I trying to fool?

Personally, I have refused many calls. Some of those calls even re-occurred over and over again. But most of the calls had a common theme: in the face of criticism and conflict with others I refused to pursue what I knew to be true. 

Why is it that many of us don't value what we genuinely have to offer, instead pursuing something that is not authentic? Why do we refuse the story that has been designed for us, for a story that does not fit? I know that for me, I did not feel that what I had was what was needed.

Whatever your reason for refusing, the calls will keep coming. Like me, you will probably have many opportunities to answer the call so now would be a good time to understand what refusal looks like for you. Even better, why not let some people around you know what is holding you back as you continue your journey into authenticity and your dreams.