cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

Emerging inquiriesOnce the seeming opposites are seen as a continuum, the polarizationsets in. For instance, one director that we work with sees ‘team working’as the polar opposite of ‘independent working’. This creates stagnation inhis thinking. However, when the continuum is translated into a graph,the possibility that both of these may coexist, or that both contain both‘good’ and ‘bad’ elements begins to be visible. See Figure 9.2.Either/or thinkingTeam working= goodIndependentworking = badPolarity thinkingTeam workingIndependent workingFigure 9.2Moving from ‘either/or’ thinking to embrace‘polarity’ thinkingPolarities are sets of opposites which cannot function well independently.The two sides of a polarity are interdependent, so one side cannot be‘right’ or the ‘solution’ at the expense of the other. It seems that many ofthe current challenges within organizations are about managing polaritiesor paradoxes, rather than solving problems. So for example, the argumentabout whether top-down or bottom-up change works best impliesthat one is right, and one is wrong. If these are seen as polarities that needto co-exist and both have their good points and bad points, it is possibleto reframe the issues that might bring organizational stagnancy bycreating positive new realities.320