2-3-4 Friday Balancing polarities

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1 THOUGHT

A lot of life, as Douglas O’Loughlin says in his Ted talk, is about polarities.

Between profit and purpose. Between a higher salary or a more meaningful job.

Between pushing and pulling. Like in your family, pushing a child beyond their comfort zone, and then pulling them close when they need support.

Between people and process. For example, if you had to judge whether a client or colleague had flouted a rule, would you follow the rule to the letter, or give another chance?

When you start thinking in polarities, you start to see it everywhere. Justice, or mercy. Candor or politeness? On and on. 

What do you do when you are pulled apart by both ends?

First, it’s admitting that balancing Polarities is never easy. Gurus like Jim Collins tell us that you can embrace the beauty of both/and, that you can have both profit and purpose, respect both people and process, and that sometimes, polarities are a false dichotomy.

Try saying that to a social worker who has to make the hard decision between removing a child from their parents, or giving the parents another chance, and risking another issue.

It’s not easy. Confessing that it isn’t easy is the first step.

The second part of balancing polarities is recognising what your priority is.

I like to think of it as a triangle. At the bottom, you have a line connecting the two polarities. Say - profit or purpose. At the top, you have your absolute priority.

That’s priority, in the singular. Not priorities.

When you’re single-minded on your priority, it makes decisions much clearer.

So what is your top priority?

So what is your top priority?

1 TALK

Polarity thinking is honouring the genius of the 'and' rather than getting stuck in the versus or the 'or'. 

How do we synergise, rather than polarise?

Douglas O Loughlin in his Ted Talk: How to spot polarities 

1 TIP

When Steve Jobs first returned to Apple, he was presented with all the products that Apple was selling at that time.

He was presented with printers, scanners, on top of the computers that Apple was selling.

He yelled,

Stop! This is crazy.

On the board, he labelled two columns “Consumer” and “Pro”, and two rows “Desktop” and “Portable”.

In a single instant, he radically simplified Apple’s focus, on making great computers.

Nothing else.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Why not ask yourself today,

If I could only do one project this year, what would that be?

Of course, this is only my opinion. What is the polarity you're facing at the moment, and what helps you? 

I would love to hear from you. 

P.S. Want to think differently about a problem you're facing? Let’s chat (and no worries, there's no fee!)

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love