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Geoff
Ball & Associates Enabling People to Work Together BETTER Geoff Ball & Associates, 315 Bryant Street, Palo Alto, CA 94301 Cell Phone 650-279-9461, ghball@aol.com |
Managing
Dilemmas By Geoff Ball and Jerry Talley, Edgewise Consulting |
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“A visionary company doesn’t seek to balance between short-term
and long-term. It seeks to do very well in the short term and very well
in the long term… it doesn’t simply balance between a tightly
held core ideology and stimulating vigorous change and movement; it does
both to an extreme….Rare? Yes. Difficult? Absolutely. But as F. Scott
Fitzgerald pointed out, ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is
the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and
still retain the ability to function.,’ This is exactly what the
visionary companies are able to do.”
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A dilemma is a pair of apparently contradictory goals both of which are valuable to the organization. These goals are in tension – moving one goal ‘up’ tends to move the other goal ‘down, yet both are essential to high performance organizational success. Organizations need both:
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Dilemmas and Conflicts Poorly managed dilemmas lead to conflicts. These conflicts are familiar to most executives and managers. Audiences respond to their familiarity and acknowledge the conflict that it causes in their organizations. |
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| We believe that some 25-50% of all organizational conflict is caused
by unacknowledged and unmanaged dilemmas. In this role play we hear blaming,
whining, finger pointing, and threats – but no positive acknowledgement
of the ways these goals are connected together – even when the connections
are pointed out by the participants themselves. Unmanaged dilemmas tend to fuel interpersonal conflicts and heighten interdepartmental friction. People caught up in dilemmas are likely to pull at each other, even yell at each other, without being aware that they are caught on the horns of a dilemma. They feel that some other group in the organization routinely undermines their best efforts. Yet, their own good efforts often lead to someone else's setback and pain. |
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People often experience dilemmas as a forced choice – they must choose one goal or the other, as if they are polar opposites. Yet, we believe that maximum organizational performance is created when dilemmas are considered a single focus, rather than separate goals. Since both sides of a dilemma are valuable and necessary, we don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. (What company can continuously avoid longer-term investments to secure short-term profits? Or visa-versa?). This thought is shown in the graphic to the right. When the situation is characterized along a line, we think in polarities and opposites. When we put the axes at right angles, we see the possibility of pursuing both goals by managing the dilemma |
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Managing Dilemmas for Competitive Advantage Organizational dilemmas are easy to find; yet, successful management of these dilemmas is rare. Exceptional management of dilemmas leads to significant competitive advantage and to reduction of unproductive organizational conflict. |
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| The cost of poorly managed dilemmas can be high. For example: | ||
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| And there is a prize if we do manage dilemmas well: | ||
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| Click to download the full Essay |
