How to Use Polarities to Resolve Dilemmas?

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For every complex problem, there is a simple solution. And it’s wrong. – Anonymous

Polarities to manage are sets of opposites that can’t function well independently. Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, you cannot choose one as a “solution” and neglect the other.

Barry Johnson

?Going beyond Barry Johnson and Coaching, Polarities are essentially dilemmas of contradictory but interrelated options available that make our decision-making difficult. It may be as life-threatening as ‘What dress should I wear for my date?’ to something as simple as ‘What job offer should I take?’. The truth is that in every dilemma and polarity, the answer perhaps lies outside the dilemma options in a third truth, the fork that does not show up on the roads to be taken.

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As in life, in coaching, polarities manifest through competing values, needs, or perspectives, as pairs of opposing but interrelated elements that exist in a dynamic equilibrium. Unlike problems that have solutions, polarities cannot be resolved; instead, they must be managed and balanced. Failure to recognize and manage polarities can lead to frustration, stagnation, and missed opportunities for growth. Let’s look at how polarities emerge in various contexts.

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Examples

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One of the most common polarities one encounters in coaching is about Work-Life Balance. In more rent times, this has become more complex with work-from-home options. There are then three horns of the dilemma, home, office or hybrid.

?Another, especially in the workspace, is about choosing between a firm no-nonsense approach to managing people and a nurturing people appreciative approach. Coaches may want every leader to be coach-like, adhering to coaching competencies. In real life, this is an impossibility. The job of a leader is to deliver results, not to mollycoddle using a coaching approach. Every employee would love a boss one could vent. Not many bosses can bear that. Not many organisations may survive that.

A third, which often comes up in teamwork, is about independence and collaboration. On the face of it, independent autonomy is great. I have seen dozens of siloed companies suffering from the toxicity of competition instead of collaboration at the C-Suite level because of autonomous Samurai leaders.

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Managing Polarities

?What does one do to resolve and manage polarities? These factors are relevant.

?Intent: What is the objective we are working toward? Why is it meaningful? How does one know when the issues are resolved? What are the challenges faced as dilemmas?

Recognition: Become aware of the dilemmas that lie unresolved, mostly for the fear of facing conflict and creating seeming disharmony. Open your eyes and mind.

Explore: Map the polarities as an image with the benefits and pitfalls of each.

?Awareness: All polarities can be balanced and managed with the third truth. What is the third truth that satisfies most of both options to reach the objectives? All third truths require open-heart empathy.

?Action: Own the third truth and act with Open Will without fear. There will always be some who are unhappy.

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Case Study

Let’s look at a case that came up in my teamwork with a C-Suite leadership. This doesn’t look like a dilemma at first glance, but was unresolved for years, and cited as an example of the team culture of indecisiveness.

The problem was the executive floor in their posh building for C-Suite leaders. More than half the leaders had their workforce shifted to far away locations as the company grew. The dilemma was about how to maintain collaboration between leaders and their workforce.

The first was the recognition of the magnitude of the problem in terms of the cost of long distances leaders travelled as well as the cost of poor decision-making both at the C-Suite level and at the business level. In addition the intangible results of inadequate presence of and communication with leaders and the workforce. The team mapped the polarities of retaining the C-Suite floor vs. the leaders shifting to workforce location and explored benefits and risks.

It took about a day of intense discussion to decide on a problem that had been unresolved for years. This was not because of this issue alone, but the conflicts that arose as a result of multiple other issues. When the location issue was resolved, the team decided to move the business leaders to their workforce locations and shift some other leaders to their respective floors in the head office building where their workforce sat, with just three leaders including the CEO staying on the erstwhile C-Suite floor.

Over the next 2 weeks with more deliberations with their teams, they added video communication devices in a meeting room and addressed several other issues that were pending action for years. These included better business and staff leader collaboration through formal service level agreements, technological inputs to enhanced internal and external communication that also resulted in business solutions and a leadership development process across the company.

?These issues were unrelated to the C-Suite location issue. The C-Suite issue, however, sparked open and honest discussions, sometimes heated, about the hesitation within the team to address and resolve difficult dilemmas. Using polarities in one dilemma helped resolve multiple others arising from a behavioural problem of sweeping problems under the carpet in the interest of spurious harmony.

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Ram is a co-founder and mentor at Coacharya?https://coacharya.com. Ram's focus is the integration of Eastern wisdom with modern science, spiritually, systemically and sustainably.

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