Summary of “Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for A Complex World” by retired Army General Stanley McChrystal “If there is a single key point that stands head and shoulders above the rest in my mind, it is this: The never-ending quest for efficiency must give way to a tireless effort to ensure adaptability…” [...]
Polarities (paradoxes and dilemmas) have been the grist of human awareness and study for more than 5,000 years. Despite efforts to reduce problems and solutions to simple either/or configurations, the authors assert that the need for both/and, polarity thinking is necessary to maximize successful transitions. Freeman (2004) states that learning and actively using both/and, polarity [...]
Success today and in the future requires critical distinctions be made in the type of thinking that’s needed for challenges and opportunities. One type of thinking addresses complicated and solvable technical problems using “either/or.” Another type of thinking addresses complexity for technically unsolvable adaptive “polarity” challenges using “both/and.” Polarities are interdependent pairs that all leaders, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]