I’ve written recently about the convergence of dualities that’s happening all across the world, and this understanding is profound and huge and important.

But I’ve come to believe the ability to hold a paradoxical tension in our minds is just as important as recognizing it at a macro scale.

The best (or we could say most helpful) behaviors seem to stem from an inclusive perspective.

Not either/or, but both/and.

The examples I gave in the dualities post apply here as well. An individual mindset which can bring together what seems like polarizing viewpoints (Eastern/Western, masculine/feminine, individualistic/familial, left brain/right brain) actually performs better, particularly in the world that is emerging.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” I’ll take it a step further: I am claiming that this ability actually makes an individual more valuable in the new economy.

Because of the ways in which the world is changing, if we wish to thrive — or even just compete — in the new economy, our mindset must evolve as well.

Here are a few more practical examples of paradoxical thinking.

Everyone is unusual (we all have utterly unique strengths), but at the same time we are all the same (we are all human beings). The truth is in the tension. It’s not either/or. When managers begin to grasp this, they quickly become the type of leader people want to follow.

Something like “impact” doesn’t even occur in pure dualities. We can’t have the impact we want on anything — there are many things outside of our control — but at the same time we truly can impact the world around us. We don’t have complete control over what happens, but we do have power over certain things which lie within our sphere of influence. The most helpful perspective lies in being able to retain both thoughts, not one or the other. When we begin to understand this, we gain a sense of freedom and power in our ability to make choices.

The truths of the world around us lie somewhere within these paradoxes. It will benefit us greatly if we can find a way to embrace the tension.

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Something I love about artists is that they recognize the power of choice.

Whether the art is writing, painting, music, filmmaking, visual, or otherwise, there is a power inherent in designing something, and that power can be summed up in that the artist has deliberately made a decision to choose one thing over another.

A book title lists “13 things one needs to know” instead of 12.

A song lyric uses the word “like” instead of “love.”

A painter picks red instead of blue.

From an outsider’s view, these things may seem trivial. But from an artist’s perspective, these choices are incredibly meaningful. In fact, they may actually be the most important thing, because without the power of choice, an artist wouldn’t be able to make art at all.

And so it is with all of us. We are all artists, painting our life’s canvas with the colors we choose. It’s just that we often think we’re not choosing, though we always are.

Sometimes we even believe we’re not true artists… which is perhaps the biggest lie of all.

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There are a whole bunch of folks talking about how the world is changing. It’s easy to miss this conversation, because like most things in our increasingly fragmented/niched world, certain realities are only evident when we look for them. (I’m sure you’ve noticed that the information deluge makes it easier for us to “hide” in whatever circle we travel in.) But whether we’re looking or not, there truly is something happening.

As a wise guy once said, the times they are a-changin’.

And they’re a-changin’ in ways we’ve never experienced before.

Life is faster, more unpredictable.
Business models are less stable.
Communication is always on, and is coming from 360 degrees.
Power structures have flattened.
Consumers are more powerful, CEOs are less powerful.

As human beings, we’ve never felt quite this connected before. At the same time, we’ve perhaps never felt quite this vulnerable, either.

To a large degree we’re headed into uncharted territory, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a few reasonable understandings about what’s ahead.

In the interest of helping to make a bit of sense about the future, I wanted to share an insight about this transition with you.

So much of where we are coming from is dualistic, in the classic sense. We’ve got a number of dichotomies we cling to: Eastern/Western, masculine/feminine, individualistic/familial, left brain/right brain. But the new world that is emerging is connecting everything. It’s colliding forces that used to be separate. (Even old, polarizing enemies like capitalism/communism are finding a new smashed-together life in places like China.)

What’s the implication here?

The things that used to be separate will not be much longer.

Soon — probably much sooner than we think (i.e. now) — we will be navigating gray areas which used to be black and white. A strange new world where left and right brain thinking are equally important, or where a feminine approach is more effective than the traditional patriarchal one, is an environment that operates with completely different rules.

This means the people who can ask the right questions, easily let go of old assumptions, and bring fresh critical thinking to steer through gray areas are the ones who will thrive.

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P.S. The other implication is that we — all of us — have many important choices to make in the coming years. When dichotomies collide, some things will stay and other things will go. We must commit to taking the best of both worlds, not the worst.

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We are quickly moving into a world that is filled to the brim with ideas, information, and knowledge. There has been talk for many years about “knowledge workers” and a “knowledge economy,” but as we can clearly see (and maybe even more importantly, feel, through the overwhelming information deluge which floods us daily), there is no simply no shortage of ideas anymore. If anything, we are approaching the point where it’s simply too much for most of us.

This is why your great idea doesn’t matter.

To be fair, my great idea doesn’t matter, either. (As an “idea guy,” this is quite painful to admit.)

The marketplace is saturated with ideas, information, and knowledge. In economic terms, the supply is beginning to outstrip the demand — and as we know, this simple equation determines what is valuable.

So in a world that couldn’t care less about “another great idea,” what actually matters?

In a word: execution.

In this kind of world, the right questions are things like:

• What can you do to bring your great idea to life… in the real world, helping real people?
• Is your great idea practical, tangible, and actionable?
• Does your great idea actually solve a problem that needs solving?

If not, we just don’t care.

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Awhile back I wrote that in order to foster a work revolution, our organizational “departments” need to die and something new needs to take their place: something I call Value Groups.

The quick version of this idea is that there are five (and only five) categories in which a person can provide value for the organization/company/tribe they are a part of:

1. They can build meaningful relationships. [Community Group]
2. They can build amazing, remarkable stuff. [Creative Group]
3. They can design an engaging place to work. [Culture Group]
4. They can design ways to fund the right projects. [Currency Group]
5. They can coordinate the efforts of the first four groups. [Conductor]

(If you’d want to learn about this in more detail, just mosey on over here.)

There are many interesting things about designing an organization in this way, but one that we haven’t yet talked about is that it leverages the natural passions of people — something that our organizations now are absolutely dreadful at.

We all have certain things that energize us, and what these things are varies from person to person. But what we’ve found through our work at Strengths Doctors is that by using specific assessments, we can get our finger on the pulse of what gives someone energy; i.e., we can easily identify what each person is passionate about.

Now, most organizations have to essentially stop there because their organizational structure is designed around tasks or functions, not passion. They can encourage their people to try to find ways to do activities they enjoy in their current jobs, but as for actually creating spaces to leverage that energy… not so much.

But if we can redesign the structure (at a team or whole-company level), this is exactly the point where it gets really exciting — because we can use that knowledge about passion to plug people into Value Groups.

When we do this, we get a tremendous win-win-win-win (yes, four wins):

1. The company wins because people who are passionate about what they’re doing on the job do MUCH better work.
2. The employees win because they get to do things at work that energize them.
3. The customers and vendors win because they get to interact with people who actually like their jobs.
4. The society at large wins because the organization is more likely to produce something that actually matters.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, what people are most passionate about lines up exactly with how they can create the most value for the organization. We just need to get them into that place — and now we know how.

So the real question is… what are we waiting for?

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The things we measure are the things that actually matter.

This might seem to go in the “Duh, obvious!” category at first glance. But this phenomenon goes much deeper than we initially think.

Example: In our companies, we want our customer service folks to treat customers like gold, right? That kind of behavior is how we keep customers coming back and how we encourage them to spend more, etc.

However, this desire for excellent service is usually counteracted by the things we actually measure. Most companies don’t have “wowing customers” as a metric. Instead, we measure our customer service representatives on how little time they can spend with customers. When we do this, no amount of “The Customer Comes First” rhetoric will ever overcome that measurement. It can’t – because it’s not what we’re measuring. No matter how much we insist that’s what we want, it can only ever be lip service; our reps are forever confined to work within the limits of their metrics.

This is how it works in every walk of life, by the way.

In sports, players play to the metrics defined for them. (For more on this, read Andy Stefanovich’s fantastic book Look At More.) Companies adhere to environmental regulations set for them by the federal government. Doctors conform to the best practices as defined by the professional organizations in their field.

We are built (or at least heavily conditioned) to color inside the lines.

Now, if we think with a victim mentality, this reality is quite depressing. But if we believe that we create the future, it’s rather exciting.

Why?

As a leader, you’re the one drawing the lines. 

(Lesson: draw your measurements carefully.)

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UPDATE 11/15/11: This phenomenon also affects nations and technology. Kind of makes one wonder what’s more important than determining the things we are going to measure, doesn’t it?

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“Everything costs something.”

When we read a statement like that we tend to nod and say, “Yes, that’s true.” It seems like common sense—maybe even too common to actually mean anything, anymore.

But if I were forced to choose, this simple idea may be one of the most important things I’ve learned about life in the past decade. And it all has to do with a really boring-sounding concept from Economics 101 called “opportunity cost.”

Most of us are risk-averse. While we say we’re adventurous, we also like to play it safe and get a steady paycheck, etc. The problem with this is that it leads us to try to defer our decisions until later—to put off our dreams in the name of “safety.” But there are two big problems with this way of living.

First, due to the work revolution, what used to be a “safe path” probably isn’t anymore.

Second, there’s no such thing as deferring a decision. This is where opportunity cost comes in. Whenever we choose one thing, we choose it at the expense of something else.

ALWAYS.

As in, every single time.

When I think about “everything costing something,” I think primarily of the one resource I have that I never get back: my time.

Whenever I give it away to one thing, I can never spend it on something else.

This makes our power to choose a very, very big deal.

I was reading the first chapter of Michael Ellsberg’s new book The Education of Millionaires the other day (you can read a sample for free here), and he includes the following quote from Randy Komisar:

“People feel like, unless they’re affirmatively making a decision, they’re not making a decision. They think, ‘How can you fail if you’re not making any decision, not cutting off any possibilities?’ The reality is, you’re making a decision all the time. You’re making a decision not to follow a path that might lead you to fulfillment.

Even though the choice to do something you don’t love, to ‘keep the options open,’ may seem like a passive decision and therefore less risky, you can’t pretend you’re not making decisions. So the real question is ‘What risks are you taking by those decisions you’re not making?’ Not making a decision to create a fulfilling life now is in fact a decision—it cuts off certain paths in the future.”

Find the path you were meant to travel.

It might not feel safe, but it will definitely be good.

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In my mission to foster a work revolution, I operate on a pretty simple premise:

If humans insist on being part of work tribes (which we always will), we need to make our tribes better.*

Because right now, most of our organizations suck.

I mean this literally — they suck the life out of us and the resources from the planet.

To stop this destructive pattern, we need to understand that there are two sides to a “business tribe:” a me side and a we side. Right now in our companies, we focus almost all of our organizational change efforts on the “me” component. This includes coaching, training, workshops, learning events, etc. These types of programs are all designed to help an individual get better, more enlightened, etc.

I’m a huge fan of personal development (clearly; it’s a big part of what I get paid to do). But it can’t stop there. And right now it does.

Here’s the problem: all the personal development in the world can’t fix a problem that lives in the system. It’s like treating cancer with a band-aid.

We have to get to the “we” side.

This is the “group” component. It’s about company culture and organizational structure. It is the “tribe” side of work. These are the rules that govern how we act when we work together, and each organization is a little different (which is good). Unfortunately, most of our companies have similar bad habits around how we organize (which is bad).

If we insist on working together, how can we organize our groups in ways that work with the new world, instead of against it?

I’ll be making the full case for this idea in my upcoming book, but a huge part of our challenge stems from the fact that most of our org charts are built around people performing a specific function or task. This is a problem, because in reality our work is much more complex and intelligent and nuanced and creative than just performing a list of duties.

Can everything you do for your company be summed up in a “job description?”

If it can be put in list form, do you want it to be!? How boring is that?

(I think you’re better and smarter and more interesting than a robot who performs a list of droning tasks, personally.)

The entire world is being rewired into communities centered around passion, which, not coincidentally, also lines up perfectly with how people create value for their organization. The great opportunity for business lies in learning to leverage the passions of the tribes that surround us.

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*For clarification, when I say “tribe” in this context I mean any kind of organization — for-profit to non-profit, small to large, startup to established, and anywhere in between.

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Once upon a time, there were three bricklayers.

When asked, “What are you doing?” the first bricklayer replied:

“I’m laying bricks.”

The second bricklayer was asked the same question. He answered:

“I’m putting up a wall.”

The third bricklayer, when asked the question “What are you doing?” responded, with pride in his voice:

“I’m building a cathedral.”

If you search for this story online you’ll find different variations, most including some sort of explanation about how it speaks to a person’s attitude and ability to see the big picture. While these things are true, and insightful, this story makes me wonder about something else.

Why is it that some companies seem to have an overwhelming amount of cathedral-builders?

Then on the other hand, why do other businesses seem to only contain hordes of bricklayers?

There is no question that a person’s individual perspective (attitude, big picture, etc.) is crucial. But the importance of the culture that individual is IN is often highly underestimated — even though a cultural explanation actually explains this conundrum much better.

If there is a group/culture/tribe component to our work — if there is something about the collective “we” that makes us better or worse as individuals — then this story isn’t just about a person’s mindset. (Also, as leaders we have very little direct control over how other people think, right?) BUT… if there’s something about the environment a person is in which can create more (or less) meaning in their work, then leaders are on the hook for something different. A work environment — unlike a person’s mentality — is something a leader has a HUGE amount of control over.

So then the next question is:

“As a leader, how do I create more cathedral-builders in my company… by building a better work environment?”

Once we start asking that question, we’re headed in the right direction.

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“Branding” in the 21st Century isn’t about marketing.

It’s about reality.

And it has almost everything to do with people.

It’s about who your people are.
It’s about how they treat each other.
It’s about how they’re treated by the leadership.
It’s about how they treat your customers (every single interaction, all day long.)

We used to be able to “fake it,” right? All we needed was a great publicist and some connections to mass media. But none of that matters anymore, because in the economy of tomorrow news comes from everywhere, all sides, all the time.

If we’ve learned anything from the seemingly endless business scandals of the last decade, it should be this: what’s hidden won’t stay that way.

Because of this, the “new brand” is all about authenticity: truly doing what you say you will. It’s about integrity, honesty, and transparency.

In the new economy, brands must be grounded in reality (what they really are) AND paint a picture that people like (what they could be) in order to succeed.

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