- Episode AI notes
- Leaders can navigate through challenges more effectively by embracing both-and thinking and working together with others to find solutions.
- Communication is a crucial challenge and opportunity for leaders, requiring them to be decisive, clear, consistent, and adaptable.
Leaders must effectively balance opposing views and approaches in their communication to maintain a dynamic and forward-focused approach. Time 0:00:00
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Balancing Dynamics and Individual Questions: Working Through Challenges together Watch people quickly figure out and navigate through various situations, finding benefit in working together and challenging organizational questions. Leaders in organizations may struggle to see the possibilities of both-and thinking when feeling their own tensions intensely. Starting with both-and approaches for other people’s situations can provide better clarity when not emotionally engaged.
Marianne Lewis
So if you take something that you don’t have a horse in the race, you can watch people pretty quickly figure out, oh, yeah, and then right walk through the, change the question. Let’s separate and connect. Let’s think about how we’re going to build some balancing and dynamics over time. And then we come back to their individual questions. And even better, we can come back and say, let’s put a really challenging organizational or team question on the table and work through it together. But I think we found that that third one, that let’s get together around a table to work through, actually benefits most when we thought about it neutrally and thought about it personally.
Wendy K. Smith
It is the case that when we try and teach these ideas to leaders and organizations, they feel their own tensions most poignantly, but can’t see their both and possibilities as easily As they can see the possibilities for both-anding when they don’t feel the tensions as intensely. So the goal is to help people feel their own tensions and then be able to apply that both-and thinking to their own situation. But it is true. It helps to start with looking at both-and approaches for other people’s situations, because those are the moments where we can see it better when we’re not emotionally engaged.
Kurt Nikish
What are some of your favorite ways that people showThe Challenge of Communication for Leaders Communication is a key challenge and opportunity for leaders, according to Paul Polman. Leaders need to be decisive and clear, but also consistently inconsistent. They must navigate between opposing views and make micro shifts. It’s like tightrope walking, keeping their eyes on the future progress without veering too far left or right. This dynamic approach can be seen in their communication.
Kurt Nikish
Marianne, did you have anything to add there?
Marianne Lewis
Well, I think communication is a key challenge and opportunity for leaders around both-hand thinking. I mean, Paul Pullman and others have said the same thing. One of the challenges when you’re using both-hand thinking is people like their leaders to be decisive and clear and consistent. So you can come off as being, wait a minute, is he waffling? Is he unsure? Or is he sending mixed messages? And so Paul would sometimes say, have to be crystal clear. We’re doing both. We have to make sure the social and the financial are working together. And today, I’m concerned about our numbers. And we’re going to do a deep dive into the finances. But tomorrow, we’ll shift gears. So the point being, how do you actually manage this on an ongoing basis? We call this being consistently inconsistent, this actual kind of tightrope walking between two approaches or multiple approaches. And it’s more of about a series of micro shifts between opposing views. So, you know, a tightrope walker is kind of keeping her, his eyes on the future, progressing and trying not to veer too far left or right as they’re moving forward. It’s a really dynamic approach. And you can see it in the communications. What
