Advocating for “Both/And” thinking as a replacement for “Either/Or” thinking. Example: “We need to get away from ‘Either/Or’ thinking and use ‘Both/And’. “ Using “verses” as a conjunction for the two poles instead of “and”. Example: “We’ve got a polarity of Structure versus Flexibility.” Describing the two poles of a polarity in a negative-to-positive, with [...]
As awareness of polarities increases, so does the awareness of multarities. The question about multiple poles comes up frequently in our PACT (Polarity Approach for Continuity and Transformation) Foundations and Professional Applications Certification training. Often, it’s from people who have deep subject matter expertise in a particular area. When they learn about polarities seeing the [...]
I realized I’d actually said the Yogi Berra quote “it’s déjà vu all over again” out loud after reading an article by E.J. Dionne Jr. -- and there was nobody else in the room… Quick backstory: Awhile back my failure to keep track of my keys resulted in the installation of a key holder, together [...]
After reading Bob Anderson's book, "Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes that Matter Most" I've been thinking a lot about...well, that. I took one of my favorite quotes by Confucius (see original below) and my favorite quote from Lao Tzu (the people said, "we did it ourselves"). Hence, mashup. Lot's of good [...]
Cindy Hosgood, passed away this morning (December 16, 2015). For over half a decade, Cindy contributed her time and talents to mission, vision, and success of Kayser Ridge. You don't have to look far on the property or inside Kayser Ridge to see the many "small" improvements that combined to make a big impact on people's [...]
The Critical Competency for the 21st Century Leaders: Solving What’s Solvable and Leveraging What’s Not When a leader, team, or organizational system is facing a change, conflict, chronic issue, or cross-cultural challenge, one a question that has potential to create outsized results is: “Is this challenge solvable sustainably by choosing either one or the other [...]
On social media, I came across a poem that was anonymously placed in a London bar and made a few tweaks to it for Polarity purposes. I hope you find it interesting/fun. ;) For Reality, read from top to the bottom... Today was the absolute worst day ever And don’t try to convince me that There’s something [...]
Independence Day Reflections on a Few of My Heroes “Polarity Thinking is a supplement to either/or problem-solving thinking – not a replacement.” Barry Johnson, PhD Our individual and collective effort to achieve independence was not expected to succeed. Against the odds the grand experiment of American independence and its representative self-government has succeeded. Bucking the idea of [...]
The Supreme Court's gay marriage decision contributed to improving the degree of leverage between Part and Whole on our nation's path to a more perfect union. I celebrate it here by pulling a few choice pieces from Justice Kennedy into a Part and Whole Polarity Map. Upside benefits of Part—Freedom, Uniqueness, and Initiative “The Constitution [...]
Individualism and Communitarianism | Science and Religion I appreciated very much an article in the Saturday, June 20 Religion section of The Washington Post written by Chris Mooney entitled, “ Papal message challenges some All-American values.” Mooney mentions that with the official release of Pope Francis's encyclical on the online gaming environment, it's clear that several [...]