Friend and Certified Polarity Practitioner in Germany, Thomas Schumacher, knew I was departing Amsterdam for Stockholm for the “Bridging Polarities” Inner Development Goals Summit. So, he thoughtfully sent me some reading material for the plane from the Academy of Management Learning & Education —  “Cultivating a Collective Paradox Mindset: Design Principles for Learning Interventions.” It’s a brilliant piece and so relevant on the lead-up to IDG.

Authors (Tjemkes, Schad, Uslu & Konijn) address what they see as a gap in paradox theory and leadership education. While polarity/paradox mindsets is a well-known and vital leadership skill — research focus is primarily individual. CPM represents an organization’s shared, learnable, and dynamic capacity to stay engaged with competing demands. They explore the shared collective polarity/paradox mindset and how it can be developed and spread across an organization. Structured learning processes, ongoing reflection, and deliberate interventions leverage the essential polarity of:

Individual Cognition And Collective Coordination.

  • Definition: A CPM is a collective’s shared capacity to engage with its tensions through ongoing, coordinated, and mindful interaction.
  • Foundation: Builds on Weick & Roberts’ (1993) concept of a collective mind, emphasizing how individual cognition and coordinated actions together create shared awareness.
  • Essence: It is not a sum of individual mindsets but an emergent, dynamic process enacted through “heedful interrelating” among members.

Authors use Crossan, Lane, & White’s (1999) “4I Organizational Learning Framework”—Intuiting, Interpreting, Integrating, Institutionalizing—to explain how CPMs can be cultivated across individual, group, and organizational levels.

  • Learning is a “both/and” — Cognitive And Social
  • CPM development requires continuous feedback and feedforward learning loops to connect personal insights with collective routines.

Six Design Principles for Cultivating a CPM Learning interventions

  1. Enable Intuiting: Help individuals notice and stay with tensions (e.g., using reflection or storytelling).
  2. Support Interpreting: Create safe spaces to reframe tensions as generative rather than threatening.
  3. Foster Integrating: Build group capacity for collective sensemaking and coordinated paradoxical action.
  4. Encourage Institutionalizing: Embed paradox practices into routines, policies, and symbols.
  5. Balance Feedback and Feedforward Learning: Facilitate zooming in and out—connecting local experiences with system-wide learning.
  6. Ensure Work–Learn Climate Fit: Align interventions with the organization’s existing climate while introducing “safe-to-learn,” “safe-to-experiment,” and “safe-to-fail” norms.

If you’re using a Polarity Map® to Integrate, consider:

As Greater Purpose: Cultivate shared capacity to leverage learning, creativity, and resilience.

Individual Mindset (Inner Work)

Upside Benefits: – Awareness of personal biases and cognitive filters. – Emotional resilience to stay with discomfort. – Reflective capacity to see multiple truths. – Increased creativity and curiosity.

Downside Risks (Overfocus on Individual): – Navel-gazing or over-intellectualization. – Fragmented action or misalignment across groups. – Paralysis by reflection without collective movement.

Action Steps (to Gain/Retain Upside): – Use reflection, metaphor work, and trigger events to surface tensions. – Practice self-awareness and meta-dissonance. – Encourage individual experimentation with paradox navigation.

Early Warnings (Overfocus on Individual): – Language centered on “I” rather than “we.” – Analysis without coordinated action. – Disconnection between insight and application.

Collective Interrelating (Shared Action)

Upside Benefits: – Shared understanding and coordinated paradoxical action. – Embedded routines that value tension as a source of learning. – Increased collaboration across silos and functions. – Organizational adaptability and continuous learning.

Downside Risks (Overfocus on Collective): – Groupthink and suppression of individual perspectives. – Ritualized or symbolic action without depth. – Loss of psychological safety for dissenting voices.

Action Steps (to Gain/Retain Upside): – Use dialogue, storytelling, and action learning to align perspectives. – Establish safe-to-learn, safe-to-experiment, and safe-to-fail climates. – Institutionalize paradox-friendly practices and feedback loops.

Early Warnings (Overfocus on Collective): – Suppression of tension or overemphasis on harmony. – Conformity over creativity. – Organizational fatigue from constant change initiatives.

Dynamic Balance and Leveraging Strategy

For leverage, organizations must continuously zoom in (deepen individual reflection) and zoom out (connect across the system).

4I Learning Process Connection (Crossan et al., 1999)

https://www.xperienceit.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=15101&action=edit#

Level Process Example Intervention
Individual Intuiting Reflection, trigger events, metaphor work
Individual ↔ Group Interpreting Dialogue, reframing, storytelling
Group ↔ Organization Integrating Communities of practice, action learning
Organization Institutionalizing Embedding paradox routines, formal reflection spaces

Six Design Principles Aligned to the Map

  1. Intuiting: Disrupt filters (zoom out) & embrace discomfort (zoom in).
  2. Interpreting: Reframe tensions as creative potential.
  3. Integrating: Build shared understanding through experimentation.
  4. Institutionalizing: Embed paradox practices into systems.
  5. Feedback & Feedforward: Ensure cross-level learning continuity.
  6. Work–Learn Climate Fit: Maintain safety for learning and experimentation.