Leaders in organisations are required to make decisions all the time. Superior performance at the organisation/team/individual level does not require being correct all the time, which is impossible, rather managing a "good batting average." Good decision making is rooted in the analysis of data, the creation of models and meta models on the computer and in the mind (intuition and abstractions), embracing ambiguity (making good assumptions), getting experience to talk (having experts on the team) and some risk taking . It's a wonder, given the complexity of the Universe and the limitations of tools and techniques, that leaders not only make great decisions but are able to make them at all! Alas, the human brain is wired to do extra-ordinary things.
Leaders are typically confronted with choices where they must choose/decide between options/features/attributes seemingly available. Good Leaders are able to choose the seemingly correct choice when confronted with an "X or Y" situation. Great leaders, however, are able to turn the "X or Y" into an "X and Y" scenario.
I have observed, some have researched, that most people's brains are wired for 'or', and only a minority for 'and'. Through childhood, school, college and in jobs, we are conditioned to decision trees where we must give up something to get something. We must choose one. We lost, along the way, our ability to demand both (and all three, all four...) and the ability to find the ways to have the cake and eat it too. Great leaders, however, are able to. They want both. Theirs is, what I call the – 'And Brain'.
The 'Or Brain' chooses. The Or Brain's paradigm is one of 'or'- profits or market-share, relationship- based or task-based, long term or the short term, big picture or details oriented, being passionate or being dispassionate, empowerment or controls, flat structure or hierarchy or stable organisations. To be or not to be is the quintessential dilemma.
The 'And Brain', however, keeps two seemly opposite ideas simultaneously in the brain and not be dysfunctional. The And Brain is able to address the contradictions. Infact, it uses the tension between the contradictions for creative solutions. The And Brain can co-exist both…passion and dispassion, confidence and humility, big picture and detail, relationship and task, technology orientation and business acumen…seemingly "opposing" forces or facets which are easily reconciled.
Jim Collins ("Good to Great") calls it the "tyranny of Or versus the power of And". Recently, in the Harvard Business Review in an article titled "How Successful Leaders Think" by Roger Martin, this phenomenon was articulated. The article pointed out "that humans, unlike animals, have an opposable thumb, wherein the fingers and the thumb oppose each other, thereby allowing humans to do what animals are unable to." It was noticed that successful leaders exhibited an opposable mind. They have the predisposition to hold two opposing ideas in their heads at the same time. And then, without settling for one alternative or the other, they are able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that has elements of both. This process of consideration and synthesis is called "Integrative thinking."
I find it possible to try and get people in organisations flirt with this concept and then get pleasantly surprised with the outcomes. It takes thinking, persistence and faith. The reactions change over time. At first, when asked to accomplish both objectives, peoples' initial reactions are "Boss wants more, he is unreasonable, doesn't he understand, what's new..." Over time, leaders show people the innovative solutions which resolve the inherent contradictions and achieve dual goals. People begin to become believers. Over time with continued success at finding these solutions they start to get converted to this powerful paradigm. Huge opportunities open up, massive resources are saved, extraordinary results manifest and a certain confidence emerges. Soon they too become 'unreasonable' themselves, realising that being reasonable allows one to do only reasonably well!
Welcome to the unreasonable world of And.
