Cliff’s Notes

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

By Cliff Kayser|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 Cliff Kayser|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 Cliff Kayser|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 [...]

A Key Holder for a Thriving Democracy

By Cliff Kayser|2025-04-26T17:37:42-04:00March 16th, 2019|Institute for Polarities of Democracy, Polarity Thinking|

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 [...]

Scaling Leadership w/a Confucius / Lao Tzu Mashup

By Cliff Kayser|2025-04-26T17:38:15-04:00March 13th, 2019|Freedom and Authority, Institute for Polarities of Democracy, Part and Whole, Participation and Representation, Scaling Leadership, Self and Other|

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 [...]

Stepping Into Purpose Retreat, 10/12-14 @ Kayser Ridge

By Cliff Kayser|2018-10-28T17:04:26-04:00October 15th, 2018|Kayser Ridge|

It was a first go-round for a visioning/vision quest at Kayser Ridge Retreat & Learning Center. As often happens when the right people assemble for the right work, and at the right time -- it can be transformational. I'm still basking in the light of this incredible collection of amazing women including lead facilitators, Christiane Frischmuth [...]

Sharing Sad News…

By Cliff Kayser|2018-12-15T20:10:09-05:00December 16th, 2015|Kayser Ridge|

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 [...]

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

By Cliff Kayser|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 Cliff Kayser|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 Cliff Kayser|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 [...]