How to Use Both/And Thinking to Solve Your Toughest Problems
A Conversation with Prof. Wendy K. Smith
Welcome to Wisdom NOTES: A short transcript summary capturing three insights from conversations on In Search of Wisdom. This edition comes from my interview with Prof. Wendy K. Smith, the co-author of Both/And Thinking.
How to Use Both/And Thinking
In this episode of In Search of Wisdom, my guest is Dr. Wendy K. Smith, the co-author of Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. Prof. Smith is the Dana J. Johnson professor of management and faculty director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the University of Delaware. She earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, where she began her intensive research on strategic paradoxes—how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory yet interdependent demands.
In the conversation, Prof. Smith and I discuss,
The Meaning of Paradoxes
How to Use Both/And Thinking
The Challenges of Navigating Paradoxes
Wisdom in daily life and much more
I really enjoyed the conversation and book. In my view, the topic of paradoxes and both/and thinking are extremely important in the search for wisdom. You can learn more about Prof. Smith’s work at https://bothandthinking.net/.
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1. What is a Paradox?
Wisdom Note #1: We generally start with defining terms, and I thought that could be useful here. How do you define paradox? And also, what do you mean by tension?
Prof. Smith: “It's such a good question, because I think the word paradox itself can be either engaging for people or off putting for people some people are like paradox Bring it on, and others are like, you know, paradox, let's leave that in the philosophers corner. And the way that we define it is that we talked about tensions as an overarching term for the kinds of emotional tug of wars, competing demands, situations in which there is a choice to be made, or in which we feel like there's opposing possibilities that come into our lives.
And, again, that could be everything from how do I navigate my health and well being? How do I partner with a partner? How do I parent the all kinds of tensions that arise there? How do I think about my career to how do I work in a team? How do I lead an organization like all kinds of places in which they're come upon us different possibilities that are often in conflict or feel like they're opposing one another? And that's the overarching term. And what we would argue is that those competing demands tensions show up as a dilemma, where a dilemma is a an experience that's begging us for an answer. Do I spend tonight, spending more time finishing the work that I have to do? Or do I make it home for family dinner? …
And what we would argue is that paradoxes underlie all of those dilemmas. But if we sort of pull back the curtain on those decisions, what we'll see underneath them are paradoxes. So it's might be worth it to spend just a minute on what we mean by that. What we mean by paradox is these contradict these interdependent persistent contradictions. […]
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