“Polarity Managementâ„¢â€
There are a large number of unsolvable problems in life and work – not difficulties you could solve if you had more money, time, or other resources, but difficulties that are inherently unsolvable, ones you cannot solve with resources. We should, however, stop trying to solve them, and instead, improve our skills in identifying unsolvable problems and manage them well.
Many of the current trends in business and industry are polarities to manage, not problems to solve. These trends are often described as movement from one way of thinking or acting to another. For example, it is currently popular to move:
- From neglect of the customer to focusing on the customer.
- From individual to team.
- From competition to collaboration.
- From centralisation to decentralisation.
- From lack of quality consciousness to high quality consciousness.
- From rigid structures to flexible arrangements.
- From autocratic management to participatory management.
These trends are making a contribution to increased effectiveness and are important for organisational survival. Seeing these movements as problems to solve radically undermines our ability to implement them. We define the problem as what we are going from and the solution as what we are going to. For example, We need to move from the problem of centralisation to the solution, which is decentralisation.
Barry Johnson, PhD, founder of Polarity Managementâ„¢ suggests that each of these trends is better understood as a polarity to manage. As such, Polarity Managementâ„¢ principles can be very helpful. Our problem-solving skills and the whole problem-solving paradigm, while extremely useful with solvable problems, can get in the way when we have a polarity to manage.
Polarities to manage are sets of opposites which can`t function well independently. Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, you cannot choose one a solution and neglect the other. The object of the Polarity Managementâ„¢ perspective is to get the best of both opposites while avoiding the limits of each.
Barry also wrote an excellent book on the subject, Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems, which I recommend for those interested in exploring these principles further.
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My name is Jessika.