Dialogue, Polarity, and Progress

These days its hard to avoid the constant strain of political and social discord. Entrenched positions dominate our political and social atmosphere..... and as one side promotes a point-of-view, the other side digs in even more, widening the gap between them and hardening their pre-existing world views. This is clearly not a recipe for successful, inclusive, and collaborative problem solving -- a capability I believe in strongly as one of the primary ingredients for personal, social, and national progress.

In my work life, however, I experience something vastly different. At work, we place a strong and healthy focus on inclusion, actively working to get the most out of our differences, rather than allowing them to divide us. We start from a position of mutual respect and a shared belief that our differences make us better, stronger, more innovative, more effective -- and in my own humble opinion, more interesting and engaging. Any initiative -- client facing or internal -- starts with a diverse team and a feeling of possibility -- not pre-existing, intractable, entrenched positions.

At work, we value dialogue, exchange, co-creation and multi-directional collaboration. We actively seek other ideas -- from a multitude of sources, external and internal. And we generally work to discover a solution together, cutting through the complexity of competing data sources, emerging requirements, and diverse perspectives to create something new together - that benefits us all and that represents our diverse ideas.

My good friend, Joe Plenzler , works with organizations on polarities and how to handle and think about them. Polarities are defined as "the condition, in a system, of having opposite characteristics at different points, especially with respect to electric charge or magnetic properties" or "a situation in which two people or groups have qualities, ideas, or principles that are diametrically opposed to each other." Basically polar opposites.  Think East vs West, Inhale vs Exhale, On vs. Off, Bid vs No-Bid, etc, etc, etc.  While polarities do serve a purpose in our world, when it comes to problem solving, their use is pretty limited.  Imagine if you only exhaled -- it doesn't work.  In fact, if you only exhale, you die.

In my work life, we deal with very few polarities and they are general not useful to us. In my specific line of work, when designing and architecting leadership development programs, extreme polarities rarely are the optimal answer to solve the specific client challenge.  Virtual learning or in-person? Which is better? Or is a combination or blend the optimal solution?  Expert driven or facilitated and interactive?  Both are good - both serve their purpose.   Internally designed or collaborative with a partner?  Both have a benefit.  Do we need to choose at the end of the poles?  If we do, doesn't that dramatically limit our ability to create and innovate?

Middle points and hybrid solutions tend to provide better answers to complex problems.  Imagine if my point of view on leadership programs was that only expert-led, in person learning was effective and that anything else is a waste of time and of no value.  And anybody who tells me differently is wrong and only reinforces my existing belief. Where would this leave me in terms of my own professional growth, ability to collaborate and serve clients with different requirements and ideas?

The problems our government and society are trying to solve do not lend themselves to polarities.  They are not binary.  They don't have mutually exclusive solutions.  Healthcare, climate, taxes, national security, immigration are not polar or binary.  In fact they work across a continuum where there are many diverse solutions.  In the healthcare debate, are greater consumer choice and competition and increased access opposed to each other?  In immigration, is border security and compassion for those that have come to this country for greater opportunity opposed to each other?  In the tax discussion, are increased revenue and reduced cost opposed to each other or binary?

One of the most important steps to achieving hybrid solutions and going beyond self-imposed artificial polarities is to greatly increase the amount of listening we do with each other.  To go beyond entrenched ideas and unnecessary stalemates, we need to be open to other ideas.  To open myself to your ideas, I have to first respect you, then acknowledge that you have something of value to offer, and then seek to deeply understand where you are coming from.

Only after listening and understanding, can we engage in a dialogue and exchange.  Dialogue, like what we encourage at work, is when the best ideas are born and when breakthroughs occur.  Going beyond polarities and entrenched world views opens us up to the best of our shared humanity and experience.  As we select the leaders we want to follow and to be, we should remember the complex interplay between dialogue, polarities and progress.

As always, your thoughts welcome.