Work It Out Rather Than Fight It Out? Here’s a Way

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of our political system of winner and loser, either you’re for us or against us, whatever policies the other guys initiated must be replaced.

And yet, as rampant as the antagonism is, it’s not what a majority of Americans want, according to several of the nationwide public opinion surveys commissioned by Our Common Purpose over the past few years.  The most pronounced of these results, in January 2023, had 93% of respondents preferring that our representatives work out their differences.  Just 7% wanted them to fight it out.

Swinging back and forth from one absolute to another can hardly be considered best for the country.  There is a better way to think about these conflicts, and a better way to deal with them.

This groundbreaking solution emanates not from the political world but from the world of business.  The brainchild of management consultant Barry Johnson, it’s called “polarity management” or more recently “polarity thinking.”  Something of a clunky label, but no matter.  It’s a powerful tool.

The original and most prevalent use of polarity management is guiding businesses through management challenges.  Johnson touches only lightly on political issues but his concepts lend themselves quite readily to the conflicts that are the subject Our Common Purpose’s study of American values.  I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend Andy Nousen, who not long ago brilliantly sensed the connection of one to the other.  It’s fertile ground to be plowed.

Johnson defines “polarities” as competing management philosophies, ideas, approaches.  A business example would be top-down management versus team-based management.  Both management styles have advocates and critics.  Those dead-set on changing the status quo view the style currently in place as the “problem” and their approach as the “solution.”

In reality, each style has advantages and disadvantages. This leads to what Johnson contends is a predictable cycle, as depicted in the illustration.  The approach currently in use eventually runs out of steam, its strengths seemingly overshadowed by its weaknesses.  All of a sudden, the competing approach looks very appealing.  But it too will eventually fall victim to its own drawbacks, making the first approach attractive all over again.  The switches take a while to occur but it’s a never-ending cycle.

Johnson and his acolytes maintain there is a better way.  Rather than flipping back and forth from one pole to the other, the ultimate objective of polarity management is to find a balance that incorporates the best elements of both poles while avoiding the pitfalls of each.  In the case of politics, it might be said the objective is to get the best of both sides while avoiding the excesses of each.

Politics isn’t Johnson’s field, but his first book outlines a couple of pertinent examples, including a different way of looking at the conflict between country first and global leadership.  His version is contained within the difference between “part” and “whole” that occurs at every level of organization, ranging from an individual being part of a family to the USA being part of the United Nations.

Johnson outlines at some length how “part” and “whole” each have their advantages.  In short, “part” emphasizes uniqueness, “whole” emphasizes connectivity.  There’s plenty of reason to want both of those, meaning that neither should be regarded as the singular solution.  Polarity management encourages us — in concept, anyway — to seek out the best of both, changing emphasis as necessary to avoid going overboard on either.

The staunchest advocates in any standoff, whether it pertains to management principles or American values or whatever else, believe the answer should be their way or no way.  In the case of international relations, a large number of Republicans and a lesser but still substantial number of Democrats have tired of us sticking our nose into every foreign crisis, almost always at some cost to us.  They believe, perhaps rightly so, that things are out of balance in one direction.  At the other extreme, our interests surely aren’t served by blatantly thumbing our nose at the world.   That’s way off balance in the other direction.

Objectively speaking, there is something good to be said about both perspectives.  The challenge is in properly balancing, or re-balancing, the two.

It’s one of many conflicts in our values that would benefit from deliberate polarity management.  Our country would benefit from making a habit of that.  The starting point is giving it a try.

— Richard Gilman

Next:  Taking polarity management for a test drive