Ouch! Leaders Who Snap When They Should S-t-r-e-t-c-h

They were born to hate each other.” (1) Thomas Jefferson was an American aristocrat from the agricultural state of Virginia. He was a sloppy-dressing, visionary philosopher, who advocated states’ rights. Alexander Hamilton was a bastard immigrant from the West Indies who dressed meticulously, thought rationally, and argued for a strong federal government. The father of America, George Washington, appointed both to his cabinet, managed the tension between these two opposing personalities, and in doing so gave birth to a confederation of United States.

Washington’s ability to embrace paradox, and NOT snap, was central to his leadership genius. How prevalent is it in yours?

Washington’s history lesson reminds us that the whitewater work environment requires leaders to manage “paradoxical tensions.” A paradox is a statement that seems self-contradictory but in reality expresses a possible truth. It is derived from the Latin word paradoxum, meaning beyond belief. A leadership paradox seems beyond belief because it involves contradictory yet interrelated elements that exist simultaneously. (2) Unlike a simple black and white (either/or) choice, a paradox is a dilemma that pulls in opposite directions at the same time. Specifically, it consists of two elements (often described as issues, sides or poles) that put leaders at R.I.S.C. because they are:

1. Recurrent – they keep coming back.
2. Interrelated – they need each other over time.
3. Simultaneous – they appear at the same time.
4. Contradictory – they pull in opposite directions.

Leading Paradox at Work
Researchers tell us that the ability to embrace “both/and” (paradoxical) thinking is a rare, yet highly effective leadership skill. (3, 4) Unlike Washington, many leaders over-focus on one element in a paradox instead of expanding their mindset to embrace both simultaneously. They snap instead of stretch when they feel pulled. For example, recently…

During a session with a group of marketing managers in a large insurance company (we’ll call it the “Flexible” Company), I pointed out that their willingness to take on so many projects and agree to numerous project changes was overwhelming their employees. The vice president of marketing objected, and stated that saying no to projects or freezing scope requirements would limit his team’s ability to respond to executive mandates and environmental changes. He staunchly defended his company’s “flexible approach” by pointing out that, they had just acquired a former competitor (we’ll call it “Clear” Company) which had been very clear about strategy, but lacked flexibility. I asked him if there was any down side to Clear Company’s sharp focus on strategy. He shot back, “Of course, it was their rigidity that actually sunk them. They couldn’t adapt fast enough to a changing market. At Flexible Company, we can!”

What would you say to this vice president and his team? Is he right? Of course, he is correct… AND incomplete. Here’s what I did during class…

I invited the group to share any negative consequences that flowed from their organization’s (Flexible company) proclivity toward malleability. They lamented that over-focusing on being responsive to every demand was creating a chaotic environment, resentment, burnout, and turnover. I then suggested that since there was an upside and downside to both sides (of the flexibility and clarity paradox), that they consider managing the tension between these two issues and avoid the “either/or” thinking trap.

We fall into the “either/or” trap when we pick one side of a paradox, in lieu of embracing both sides. In the above example, the VP thought I was suggesting that he reject his company’s flexible approach in order to embrace the purchased company’s clear focus. In fact, I was inviting him to be a “both/and” (paradoxical) thinker by stretching to embrace flexibility and clarity. Unfortunately, pressure often narrows our focus, leading to myopic thinking and poor leadership decisions. Under stress, we often snap (pick one side) or we discourage conflict instead of encouraging competing views. (5) Other common either/or responses to tough times include:

1. Cutting costs across the board without protecting strategic expenditures.
2. Focusing on this quarter’s numbers without keeping an eye on next year.
3. Pushing your team to accomplish its goals without considering the needs of the organization.
4. Working so much overtime that it damages your home life.
5. Pressuring others to perform (e.g., productivity, sales) without empowering them to execute.
6. Sticking to rigid organizational approaches while sacrificing innovative entrepreneurial experiments.
7. Rewarding individual performers to the detriment of cross-functional teamwork.
8. Accelerating the pace of change while ignoring the need for stability.
9. Reducing training at a time when employees have time to learn.
10. Emphasizing profits without weighing risks.

Do any of these sound familiar to you? Have you experienced (or see others suffer from) the negative consequences of over-focusing on one element of a paradox at the expense of the other, especially under stress? If you’ve heard or felt that snap, you’re not alone…

In December 2006, Madelyn Antoncic, chief risk officer at Lehman Brothers, issued a warning about the “sense of complacency” regarding risk at a banking-industry conference in Geneva. Less than two months later, this well respected risk manager was gored by Lehman Brothers’ hard charging, bull-in-the-china-shop CEO, Dick Fuld. She was fired because this CEO’s was unwillingness to manage the tension between increasing profits and mitigating risk led to the collapse of the 200-year-old financial institution. In fact, according to a special report in The Economist, leaders who managed this tension the worst led the banks that suffered the most during the Great Recession. (6)

The financial markets failed to learn from Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, and the banking and loan problems of the 1990’s. Leaders mismanaged the paradox of short-term profits and long-term risk, and millions suffered the loss of trillions. Nevertheless, let’s not just blame Wall Street; we see the inability to embrace paradox around many corners too.

John Seely Brown, former chief scientist of Xerox, points out that leaders who fail to harness these tensions seldom survive. (7) This is what happened to Xerox during the 1970s when the creative scientists at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on the West Coast collided with the process-oriented engineers at corporate on the East Coast. The result was great research, such as the graphic user interface (GUI) and Ethernet, which was not developed for the market by Xerox. Their leaders failed to embrace the paradoxical tension between research (explore the future) and development (exploit the present). As Professors O’Reilly and Tushman concluded in their comprehensive review of 138 studies, innovation and efficiency need not be strategic tradeoffs. (8) We can’t solve the innovator’s dilemma; we must manage its tensions.

The tragedy of either/or thinking reared its head years later at Xerox when CEO Richard Thoman, newly recruited from IBM, embarked on an overly aggressive, global strategy. Mismanaging the change and stability paradox doomed the strategy, his brief tenure, and put the company in the intensive care unit. Fortunately, Anne Mulcahy managed these tensions well and built a team that rehabilitated Xerox. She was selected as ‘CEO of the Year 2008’ by Chief Executive magazine.

We mismanage these paradoxes because most of us were raised with an either/or mindset: there was one answer in the back of the book when we went to school; we learned early in our careers to solve problems (not manage tensions); our business mentors, models and schools taught us that leaders make tough calls. This cognitive framework combined with the conflicting demands from diverse stakeholders increases the paradoxical pull we feel.

So, how often do you feel pulled in opposite directions? Which issues do that? How do you keep from snapping? Read this next blog to discover ten tools that help leaders stretch: .http://davejensenonleadership.com/free-articles/ten-tools-to-manage-paradox-at-work/

Keep on Stretching,
Dave

P.S. Dave Jensen and his team transform proven leadership tools into your success stories. Dave is an executive coach and an engaging speaker at conferences, meetings, and workshops. He can be reached in Los Angeles, CA at (310) 397-6686. Click here for more info about the research-based, online 360-leadership assessment (XLM): http://xlmassessment.com/ )

P.S.S. You are welcome to republish this article, forward it to your contacts, and serialize this material in your corporate newsletter, websites, and blogs. Use it to educate your team at your meetings. Simply include my contact info at the bottom.

1. Lewis, Marianne; Exploring Paradox: Toward a More Comprehensive Guide, Academy of Management Review, 2000, 35, 4, 760-776.

2. James Flexner; Washington – The Indispensable Man, Little, Brown & Co., Time Warner Book Group, New York, NY, 1974, page 232.

3. Richard Lepsinger, How Top Performing Companies Get Ahead of the Pack and Stay There, American Management Association MWorld, Summer 2007, 3 – 4.

4. Melanie Kana and Ken Parry, Identifying Paradox: A Grounded Theory of Leadership In Overcoming Resistance to Change, The Leadership Quarterly, Vol. 15, 2004, 467–491.

5. Robert Kaplan, David Norton, Stewart Friedman, et al; Unconventional Wisdom in a Downturn, Harvard Business Review, December 2008, 28-31.

5. Robert Kaplan, David Norton, Stewart Friedman, et al; Unconventional Wisdom in a Downturn, Harvard Business Review, December 2008, 28-31.

6. Cinderella’s Moment – A Special Report on Financial Risk, The Economist, February 13, 2010, page 9 – 11.

7. John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid; Creativity Versus Structure: A Useful Tension, MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2001, page 93 – 94.

8. Charles O’Reilly and Michael Tushman; Ambidexterity as a Dynamic Capability: Resolving the Innovator’s Dilemma, Working Paper, February 19, 2007, pages 1 – 62.