Support for the Seeing Step 1: The Important Distinction Between Technical and Adaptive Thinking

By |2019-04-14T11:54:25-04:00April 14th, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

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…” [...]

Polarity, paradox, tension, dilemma in Leader Transition

By |2019-04-14T11:51:08-04:00April 11th, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

Growing a Culture of Purpose and Trust: Leveraging Leader, Team, and Organizational Polarities

By |2019-03-25T14:58:06-04:00March 25th, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

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, [...]

Top 10 Easy Mistakes or Habits to Break When Learning/Applying Polarity Thinking

By |2019-04-16T08:31:53-04:00March 23rd, 2019|Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

From Polarities to Multarities: Interdependencies of More Than Two

By |2025-04-26T17:36:21-04:00March 18th, 2019|Institute for Polarities of Democracy, Multarities, Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

Thinking in Solvable “either/or” AND Unsolvable (but Leverage-able) “both/and”

By |2018-12-15T16:21:49-05:00August 5th, 2015|Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

My Reality AND My Attitude

By |2018-12-15T19:07:48-05:00July 25th, 2015|Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

Polarity Thinking AND Problem-solving | Continuity AND Transformation | Collective Justice AND Individual Justice | Freedom AND Equality | Self AND Other

By |2018-12-15T19:44:55-05:00July 4th, 2015|Continuity and Transformation, Freedom AND Equality, Individual Justice and Collective Justice, Polarity Thinking, Polarity Thinking and Problem-solving Thinking, Self and Other|

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 [...]

Leveraging Part and Whole — The Supreme Court Decision on Marriage Equality

By |2020-03-12T12:15:25-04:00June 27th, 2015|Part and Whole, Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

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