1. Acknowledge and label the issues related to the tension
- Sometimes you can feel the tension before you know its source. As a first step, acknowledge the discomfort and the issue.
- Once you have acknowledged that there is a tension, find ways to name it. Simply changing what you call the tension can reframe it in a way that brings creative new solutions into view.
2. Consider separating aspects of the tension.
- Tensions often arise because people are forced to work with others who have different mindsets, processes, or interests. Instead of making people work together when they are creating tension, allow them to work separately. For example, creative people deal well with ambiguity, but this can be frustrating for people who like certainty. You could consider putting the people who like ambiguity into the R&D department and the people who like certainty into operations.
3. Consider ways of connecting aspects of the tension.
- Separating aspects of the tension may work in the short term, but you lose the opportunity to benefit from the creative aspects that can be leveraged from the tension. An alternative approach is to integrate the different aspects of the tension. It can be done in two ways.
- Try both/and exercises: Encourage dialogue and ideas that focus on “both/and”. Instead of asking “Should I do A or B?”, ask “How can I do A and B? How can one help the other?” Start brainstorming on a whiteboard with the people experiencing the tensions. Ask them to imagine an alternate reality where there are no resource constraints. Encourage divergent thinking and avoid editing ideas. This approach recasts the tension as a mutually beneficial action.
- Create temporary teams: Put the people experiencing tension in temporary teams with clear, achievable objectives where they are forced to find ways to overcome differences and take pride in small wins, laying a path to future successes.
- Find ways to transcend the issue. Sometimes redefining what the organization is or does, or hiring more staff and finding more resources, can transcend the tension.
4. Move between separating and integrating opposing demands.
- When neither a separation or integration strategy solves the problem, consider activities that go back and forth between the two. This starts to reduce the negative forces at the heart of the issue and leverages creative abrasion.
- Some people might see this back and forth as signaling inconsistent behavior, but you can frame it as “consistently inconsistent decision-making”[1]. Leaders who use this separation/integration strategy create temporary and flexible structures that can change over time and shift between objectives. For example, they can focus their attention more on existing products in one moment, then shift to focusing more on innovation at another. They communicate clearly, so people know to anticipate the shifts. To keep one side of the tension from dominating the other, they ensure that they have put systems in place, such as people, teams, or metrics, that focus on each side of the tension.
[1] Smith, Wendy K. Dynamic Decision Making: A Model of Senior Leaders Managing Strategic Paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal Vol 57 No 6. https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amj.2011.0932