The Contradictions of Great People and Organizations

Innovation Acceleration: Unleashing the Power of Great People and Organizations, an inside-out view of the greatest innovation practitioners, leaders, and organizations delivering extraordinary value creation globally. In our first article we reviewed how Gratitude Fuels Innovation. Today we examine the contradictions of greatness.

Some of the greatest people we meet are a bit puzzling, to say the least. I recall an executive meeting where the young presenter shared a brilliant and in-depth analysis of market performance predictors. The discussion that followed after he exited the room had him labeled as “technically capable but too analytical for effective market leadership.” We met again in a different setting where he enthusiastically pitched one of his (many) ideas to foster business growth. This other team of executives had him pinned as “a good marketer but not analytical or detailed enough to lead execution.” Taking the nuances of the different meetings aside, both executive teams had him wrong, with very opposite verdicts on his capabilities. He became one of the greatest innovators in the industry, masterfully identifying, maturing, and executing nearly 30 new product and service ideas yielding millions of dollars in new business revenues.

How could different teams of seasoned executives misread someone’s talents like that? To be fair, they had experienced some poor, many mediocre, and a few good people in their careers. Greatness is as scarce as it is paradoxical.

Great innovators, people, and organizations are often misunderstood. From a distance, they are interesting but do not fit neatly in our mental categories or biases. From close by, they may come across as idiosyncratic, a bit unpredictable, hard to read. They are full of contradictions.

When Given Two Options, Greatness Takes Both

While most of us agonize about making the right decision when confronted with two options, great people and organizations refuse to settle. In fact, when given two options, they take both. They know greatness lies somewhere between forces pulling from very different directions. It does not reside in neither of the options, nor in their balance. The world of greatness is not an “OR” world. The world of greatness is an “AND” world. It is a powerful blend of seemingly contradictory states and traits:

Vision AND Execution

Technology AND Humanity

Planning AND Spontaneity

Analysis AND Intuition

Purpose AND Discipline

Mindset AND Action

Scarcity AND Abundance

Standards AND Freedom

Passion AND Resilience

Serendipity AND Mechanisms

Facts AND Storytelling

Breadth AND Depth

Competition AND Collaboration

Servitude AND Leadership

Failure AND Success

Reduction AND Growth

Problem AND Opportunity

Ambition AND Empathy

Art AND Science

Work AND Life

Trials AND Scalability

Marketing AND Substance

Confidence AND Humility

Kindness AND Strength

Conviction AND Ambiguity

Variability AND Consistency

Strategy AND Operation

Introversion AND Extroversion

Courage AND Moderation

Acceleration AND Patience

Conciliation AND Decisiveness

Hardness AND Softness

Naiveté AND Expertise

Consensus AND Rebellion

Vulnerability AND Trust

Tradition AND Novelty

Diversity AND Homogeneity

Stubbornness AND Open-Mindedness

Centralized AND Decentralized

Stability AND Paranoia

Frugality AND Investment

Enlightenment AND Common Sense

Boldness AND Reflection

Uncertainty AND Judgement

Simplicity AND Complexity

Respect AND Defiance

Ordinary AND Extraordinary

Incrementalism AND Exponentiality

Process AND Experimentation

Fear AND Excitement

Excellence AND Innovation

The Genius of Contradictions

Take Excellence AND Innovation as just one contradiction or paradox to explore further. For most people and organizations, Excellence and Innovation are forces pulling from very different directions. The world of Excellence is all about getting the most out of what you have, becoming more efficient, increasing productivity and margins. It is deliberate, focused, process driven, and rule abiding. It is largely skeptical, if not fearful, of the world of Innovation. On the other side, the world of Innovation is all about looking at problems, systems, and people from different perspectives, reinventing the way goals are designed and accomplished. It is bold, nimble, flexible, and risk taking. It is largely dismissive, if not disdainful, of the world of Excellence.

If you are in the horse business, the world of Excellence wants to squeeze efficiencies out those horses. It wants healthier, stronger, faster horses. But the world of Innovation knows that you don’t get to design cars by squeezing efficiencies out of horses.

It would be tempting to conclude that Innovation driven people and organizations are the winners. After all, Excellence driven people and organizations may thrive in the short run but are ultimately destined to obsolescence and/or perpetual mediocrity. However, purely Innovation driven people and organizations are also ultimately destined to outright death and/or perpetual mediocrity. Their tendency to innovate without a consistent purpose or directional guidance causing all but a small fraction of them to survive, let alone thrive.

The few people and organizations that achieve and endure greatness do not choose between Excellence and Innovation. They take both. If they are in the horse business, they use Excellence to relentlessly squeeze efficiencies out of their horses. Concurrently, they use Innovation to challenge themselves to find a better way. And it is not just a 10% or 20% better way but a 5- or 10-fold better way. They obsess about the problem, look at it from very different perspectives, and often redefine it to unlock breakthrough solutions.

But they are not great yet.

Most innovations fail. And most innovative people and organizations fail at this stage, unable to become dominant in their fields or industries. They will never achieve greatness, unless they are able to purposefully scale their innovations. And great people and organizations know that one successfully scales Innovation with Excellence.

Excellence and Innovation are strong opposite forces but enduring greatness is only achieved when Excellence AND Innovation work together. Innovation creates an opportunity for Excellence to reach new heights. Excellence is indispensable to scale Innovation, systematically and sustainably, to its highest levels of performance.

The goal is rarely a 50/50 balance between Excellence and Innovation. The distribution of these two forces will vary depending on specific contexts, industries, and degree of technological disruption. Surprisingly to most, Excellence has a heavier weight on enduring greatness than Innovation does. But in all successful cases, they may repel but depend on each other to be complete, and truly great, together.

In the words of Fitzgerald, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Greatness requires us all to master the power of contradictions and paradoxes. It is not a mere compromise or lack of conviction. The purposeful pursuit of greatness demands simplicity from the mastery of complexity.

We learn, improve, and innovate together. Share your perspectives in the comments below. What contradictions are most powerful to you? Who best represents the genius of contradictions? How do contradictions help you improve the way you create, work, or live?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

José Pires serves as Global Excellence & Innovation executive leader and advisor for startups, scaleups, and Fortune 500 companies. His award-winning programs on culture and business transformation, innovation acceleration, leadership development, and strategy execution include more than 30,000 professionals and clients in energy, oil & gas, power generation, telecommunications, technology, finance, banking, insurance, law, healthcare, transportation, infrastructure, electronics, semiconductors, food, manufacturing, education, government and non-profit organizations in more than 20 countries.