Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable ProblemsUniversity level text. Some complex problems simply do not have "solutions." The key to being an effective leader is being able to recognize and manage such problems. Polarity Management presents a unique model and set of principles that will challenge you to look at situations in new ways. Also included are exercises to strengthen your skills, and case studies to help you begin applying the model to your own unsolvable problems. |
Contents
19 | |
27 | |
Being Right Is the Easy Step | 41 |
Crusading and TraditionBearing | 53 |
A Problem to Solve or a Polarity to Manage? | 79 |
How to Recognize a WellManaged Polarity | 97 |
Two Departments in Conflict | 117 |
Section A An Owner and a Manager Struggling with | 147 |
How Participatory Management Gets | 181 |
The Art and Science of Polarity | 225 |
Common terms and phrases
apartheid becomes boss cerns clarity clear Community Conditional Respect connectedness crusading decentralized Decides and Tells decisions difficulty ongoing dividual downside of Individual downside of team dynamics effective effort either/or emphasis employees ethnic eustress exhaling experience Figure flexible focus four quadrants Freedom Gail goblet GROUP SYNERGY identify important Individual Responsibility Individual/Team inhaling initiative and creativity interdependent issue key polarities L+ R+ lack leader LEFT POLE look lower quadrants manage the polarity managed polarity move neglect non-work normal flow opposite pole Organization Responsibility Part/Whole polarity Participatory Management perspective Polarity Map polarity model polarity to manage Pole Myth present pole problem to solve resistance RIGHT POLE right quadrant rigid shift sister polarities situation solution Spinnaker STABILITY stuck Synergy talk tap own initiative Team Support things tion Type Unconditional uniqueness University of Toledo unstuck upper quadrant values whole picture whole polarity
Popular passages
Page 55 - I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation - 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.
Page 217 - Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!
Page xvii - This involves some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that it is hard to know just how long the descriptive material will be correct.
Page xviii - Polarities to manage are sets of opposites which can't function well independently. Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, you cannot choose one as a "solution
Page 172 - Rights; among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness -^-Declaration of Independence of the United States...
Page 217 - I put my pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else.
Page xviii - Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, it is not possible to choose one as a solution and neglect the other. The aim of polarity management is to get the best of both opposites while avoiding the limits of each.
Page 23 - In order to gain and maintain the benefits of one pole, you must also pursue the benefits of the other. The ability to inhale the greatest amount of fresh air requires that first you exhale as completely as possible.
Page 3 - For every complex problem there is a simple solution and it's wrong.
Page 172 - We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people)* are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.