Paradox Thinking: The Ultimate Leadership Hack in Times of Uncertainty with Wendy Smith
Wendy Smith - Organisational Psychologist, Author and Leading Expert on the Power of Paradox
Wendy Smith currently holds the prestigious title of Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management and serves as the faculty director of the Women's Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. Wendy is also one of the youngest people named as an Academy of Management Fellow. As an organizational psychologist, she is a leading expert on the power of paradox - applying both/and thinking to help us innovate, change and generate more creative, sustainable solutions to our toughest challenges. In her talks, Wendy brings science-based research to life with real world stories to both captivate and motivate her audiences.
Leaders can’t afford to stay stuck in rigid thinking. They need Paradox Thinking for success.
On this episode of We Are Human Leaders, hosts Sally Clarke and Alexis Zahner welcome Wendy Smith, the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management at the University of Delaware and co-author of Both/And Thinking, to explore how embracing paradox can transform the way we lead and live. Wendy reveals how tensions and dilemmas—far from being obstacles—serve as catalysts for innovation, drawing on case studies from IBM’s cloud transition to Unilever’s sustainable growth and the ancient roots of interdependent opposites in Eastern and Indigenous philosophies. Listeners will learn actionable techniques to reframe “either/or” dilemmas, cultivate a paradox mindset, and leverage the power of the pause and radical acceptance to navigate uncertainty with creativity and resilience. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges the way you think, decide, and lead.
More about Wendy Smith:
Wendy Smith is the co-author of Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems, along with Marianne Lewis, named a Top 10 Management Book by Thinkers50, a finalist for the Next Big Idea Award, and a #1 Amazon New Release. Smith and Lewis were awarded the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award for these ground-breaking ideas. Wendy is also an award-winning scholar. She has been named the Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers for being among the top 1% most- cited researchers for 5 years in a row. She has published her research in influential journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Management Science, while also reaching beyond academia to publish in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fast Company, Newsweek, and others. As a compelling and engaging teacher, she won the MBA Excellence in Teaching Award 5 times.
Connect with Wendy Smith, and find her work here:
Find Wendy Smith on LinkedIn and her website.
Get your copy of Wendy Smith’s book Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems here.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Sally Clarke: Welcome to, we Are Human Leaders. I'm Sally Clark, and today Alexis Zana and I are sitting down live in person in Sydney with Wendy Smith, who is a global expert in both end thinking as opposed to the outdated modality of either or thinking. She works in the space of paradox.
[00:00:17] Alexis Zahner: That's right, so, so Wendy is the Donna J.
[00:00:20] Johnson professor of Management at the University of Delaware, and we are really excited to unpack her book written alongside Marianne Lewis today called Both and Thinking. So this is a conversation that it is going to push you beyond the preconceptions of decision-making right through to even how you live your life.
[00:00:39] We are really excited. This has been a super fun conversation for Sally and I. So without further ado, let's
[00:00:45] Sally Clarke: delve in. Welcome to We Are Human Leaders. Wendy, it is such a pleasure to have you with us today, and we would love to get started by getting to know you a little better and if you could share some of the journey that's brought you to the incredible work that you're doing today.
[00:00:58] Wendy Smith: Well, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Um. They say that research is me search. Uh, and so I come as an academic, I've been doing research on this idea of paradox in both, and, and it was partially a function of doing research on my own tensions and challenges, uh, my career challenges, my tensions.
[00:01:17] So when I started, I had these questions, do I become an academic and study ideas or to become a, you know, real person leader and actually implement and impact ideas? I went into academia and, uh, had this tension. Do I study innovation, which is what my advisor was studying, and I had great access to data or do I study sustainability, which is what I was interested in at the time.
[00:01:40] And so there was all these dilemmas that I was facing. And when I stumbled upon the question of paradox, it lit this light bulb, not just of how it could inform the research I was doing, but how that research could inform my own tensions. And that's how I landed here.
[00:01:56] Sally Clarke: Incredible. And I'd love to know how that came on your path.
[00:02:00] When, when did Paradox, the concepts that have come on your path, and tell us a little bit more about that sort of aha lit lighting up moment.
[00:02:06] Wendy Smith: Yeah, it was a little bit of a slow, slow emergence, um, that happened starting when I was. In undergrad, there were these ideas of paradox that would bubble up in philosophy but not get explored extensively.
[00:02:19] Hmm. Many of them weren't coming from the Western philosophers that we were studying. I spent a year after grad school actually. Um. Studying Jewish text. Jewish text is all written in the language of conversations happening that you engage them simultaneously without having to make a choice.
[00:02:39] Speaker 4: I,
[00:02:40] Wendy Smith: uh, did a lot of yoga and did a lot of Buddhist, me or meditation that brought up Buddhist philosophy that would introduce this idea of interdependent opposites.
[00:02:51] So there were these multiple streams. That were happening in the background. While in the foreground, I was studying how senior leaders of IBM were trying to navigate innovation amid in the early two thousands amid the last sort of big technological transition into cloud computing.
[00:03:11] Speaker 4: Right?
[00:03:11] Wendy Smith: And the tension that they were facing was this question of how do we manage to introduce or move into the future and innovate while simultaneously.
[00:03:20] Struggling with grasping onto holding onto their current customers and processes and and technologies and that tension between today and tomorrow. And that's where it bubbled up for me in the research because. While so much of the research on innovation, we talked about how quickly you have to move to the future and let go of the past.
[00:03:38] What they were actually doing was trying to navigate this tension, this ongoing tension between holding onto the past and moving into the future and seeing how they informed one another. And that was very different than just let go of the past and moving into the future. And so. This concept of paradox became really relevant to what they were thinking about.
[00:03:56] Alexis Zahner: It's really interesting, Wendy, and it's interesting that you pointed to some of the Eastern philosophies there as well. Yeah. And I know we were chatting before the podcast. That's certainly something we'd love to dive into a little bit more with you. Before we do, however, can you help us understand with a little bit more clarity, what exactly is tension?
[00:04:12] What are these dilemmas and, and what is a paradox? Yeah. Can you give us a bit of language around that?
[00:04:16] Wendy Smith: Yes. So here's how we define it. We think about tensions at the, as the tug of wars, we feel. Mm-hmm. Your listeners could just imagine what, what am I struggling with at the moment? What's the challenge that I'm facing?
[00:04:26] It could be a career challenge. Should I stay in my career? Should I move? It could be a, a parenting challenge or a partnering challenge. Yeah. How do I parent my children to both enable them to have more flexibility and autonomy, but at the same time have a bit of discipline? Yeah. It could be, uh, a challenge.
[00:04:42] As I said with partner. It could be a challenge with leadership. How do I think about, mm-hmm. Moving into this whole next phase of innovation, but at the same time worrying about my employees and my employees, uh, welfare and their, and their, their role. So imagine the tensions that we feel. Those are the tensions, those tug of wars, those feelings.
[00:05:00] I. We tend to frame those tensions as dilemmas. Mm. Uh, as we've got to choose one or the other. This, this choice between either option, that's how they come to us. Mm. That's how we experience them. So, uh, what am I gonna do for my career? We feel like we have to make a choice, and so we frame it as a dilemma, a trade off, an either or.
[00:05:21] Yeah. What we would argue is that that's the way those tensions present themselves. But if we look. If we sort of peel black a layer and look underneath those tensions, that's where you'll find these enduring paradoxes. Mm. And by paradox we mean these opposing forces. These. These opposites that are also interdependent that define each other.
[00:05:43] Speaker 4: Mm. And
[00:05:44] Wendy Smith: we like, you know, to the point of, of Eastern Fly, we like to use the yin yang as an image, right? Yeah. That there are these opposite forces that feel like they can't go together, that feel absurd going together, and yet they define each other.
[00:05:57] Speaker 4: Mm. And
[00:05:57] Wendy Smith: what we would say is peel back any dilemma that we face, and underneath it will be this ongoing persistent.
[00:06:04] Interdependent
[00:06:06] Sally Clarke: opposite.
[00:06:06] Wendy Smith: So yeah, go ahead.
[00:06:08] Sally Clarke: Amazing. I'm just thinking of sort of understanding, 'cause I feel like for a lot of us, the concept of these tensions, these dilemmas, it can feel quite uncomfortable.
[00:06:15] Alexis Zahner: Yes.
[00:06:16] Sally Clarke: And therefore we wanna get away from it. So we kind of. Translated into this either or, 'cause it feels perhaps more comfortable to us to have to pick.
[00:06:23] But what is it really about paradox that makes humans so uncomfortable? What's that? Why is the challenge just so much?
[00:06:29] Wendy Smith: Yeah, I mean, it's exactly that. It's that, first of all, it feels absurd. Mm-hmm. So we've been raised to try and find the truth. Mm-hmm. And it feels sort of absurd that the truth is, is right and right.
[00:06:40] You know, on one hand we'll say win-win. Right. Right. To really sit down and say, well, is it possible that the way that I think about something is right? And the way that somebody really different than me is thinking about something is right, could both coexist. That feels really uncomfortable. It feels really uncertain.
[00:06:57] And we don't like uncertainty. There's a fear in leaving things open that we feel more vulnerable. So, you know, imagine, uh, I mean I certainly remember when I was trying, when I was in the midst of these career decisions. I was so jealous when I was in college of all of my friends who were pre-med because they knew exactly what they were gonna be doing and they had a very clear path and knew how to get there.
[00:07:16] Yeah. But I was debating and, and so while there was a great opportunity in leaving this open, 'cause I was exploring and engaging, it felt horrible. Yeah. Because I felt like, well, what am I supposed to be doing and how can I. So I think that leaving things open feels very vulnerable and it feels very fearful, and we wanna close things off quickly, and that's what we do by making a choice or that we close 'em off by making a choice.
[00:07:40] Alexis Zahner: Interestingly, the word dilemma for me also brings about this notion that it's something to be solved.
[00:07:46] Speaker 4: Yes.
[00:07:47] Alexis Zahner: And there's no space for the complexity.
[00:07:50] Yeah.
[00:07:51] In that and, and that we need to come to a conclusion or a resolution, um, or make a decision on path A or path B, and that that's. Not the case for paradoxes, is it?
[00:08:00] That's right. The invitation
[00:08:02] Wendy Smith: with the P. So I just wanna say for some listeners, paradoxes, when I do workshops
[00:08:06] Speaker 4: mm-hmm.
[00:08:07] Wendy Smith: I'll ask people, how do you relate to the word paradox?
[00:08:09] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
[00:08:10] Wendy Smith: Uh, for me the word paradox has this open possibility that it's more expansive. Yeah. It's more reflective of the world we live in.
[00:08:17] For some people, the world paradox is a really tough word. Yeah. 'cause it means a problem that can never be solved that leaves us uncomfortable and uncertain. Yeah. So I wanna just note that this word. Um, while we see it being used much more in the lexicon of leaders, we see leaders having grapple grappling with paradox, being invited to live into paradox.
[00:08:36] Mm. Not everyone likes the word itself 'cause it can feel uncomfortable that it feels like this, this philosophical puzzle that never goes away. Yeah. And that feels problematic to people. Yeah. It's
[00:08:47] Sally Clarke: so interesting. I think my experience has been coming from someone who's very much in sort of a controlling mode, a lawyer who wanted to have all the answers immediately, and I felt really.
[00:08:56] Uncomfortable with the uncertainty with the not knowing, to the point where I would make decisions, not the wisest decision, simply to have the decision made right, rather than to have what was truly the wisest decision for me. So I think it's been an interesting sort of. Evolution personally to sort of start to become more comfortable and I think have a similar response to the word that you do, which is this sense of almost curiosity.
[00:09:15] Yeah. About what could come up. Because this paradox, para paradox exists.
[00:09:19] Wendy Smith: Yes. And then, by the way, so first it's the young, this discomfort of leaving something open. We like to be controlling that fear, that that vulnerable. But then once we've made a decision. We as humans, and there's tons of studies around this, wanna be consistent in our decisions.
[00:09:34] Mm. So let's say we claim an identity, we were talking earlier about claiming political identities. Yeah. Or we claim I, I'm vegan as I claim an identity. Mm-hmm. Well, what happens if I decide to have a piece of milk chocolate? Well, you're no longer vegan, right? So. The, the assumption that we have to be super consistent in our approach also constrain us from being more open and expansive.
[00:09:55] Yeah. We were just saying that now in the United States, when it comes to politics, the assumption is, is that if we have claimed a political identity, we will vote and assume that all of our positions Yeah. Now align with that. And it's uncomfortable for people if we don't align with that. Mm-hmm. So how do we not only stay open to uncertainty, invite the complexity.
[00:10:15] Then allow ourselves to not have to manage that consistency in a way that's more expansive rather than is more.
[00:10:23] Sally Clarke: I feel like that leads beautifully into our next question Yeah. Which is the concept of, and both thinking Yeah. Which you've developed and written so much about. Yeah. I'd love to unpack what, what do you mean by this term?
[00:10:33] And if you could perhaps give us a practical example. Yeah. Um, perhaps in leadership or work of where you've. You've seen that?
[00:10:39] Wendy Smith: Yeah. Um, so I mean, I could start with, when I was talking to the leaders in IBM years ago, uh, the question that they were grappling with is, um, how do we move into being innovative?
[00:10:52] And the struggle that they had was that if they become these innovators and introduce new products and new ideas. And yet that would mean for them that they would have no space, no time. They wouldn't want to be focused on their existing world because that would limit them to be able to be the innovators as opposed to the leaders that were actually quite talented and very good leaders we're saying, no, no, we've got to be able to hold the future and simultaneously.
[00:11:20] Connect with our existing customers that value our existing, uh, our existing products and be able to bring them both together. So both and is about noticing these opposing and. Opposite approaches, valuing each one and seeing how they connect with one another. I'll tell you one more quick story. When I, before I went back to grad school, I was a consultant and it was in the era of the emerging conversations about social responsibility.
[00:11:49] Mm-hmm. And I remember one of my case leaders on a project said, you know, there's no such thing as social responsibility. All that companies ever do is really think about their bottom line and anything that they do that might be socially responsible be greenwashing. Yeah. And I remember thinking, wait, I'm not sure that's the case.
[00:12:06] And you know, and. It really struck me that the problem that was, that they were struggling with was the assumption that if you are a for-profit company, then every single decision that you have to make has to be in service of the bottom line of profit. Mm-hmm. And that's certainly a perspective that we see out there.
[00:12:23] Yeah. But it's not a very complex one. It's a very limited one, which as we've seen with many companies over focusing on. On the bottom line without thinking about ethics, without thinking about values, without thinking about employee needs, without thinking, without thinking about the more complex set of stakeholders is actually a recipe for disaster for many of these companies.
[00:12:45] Alexis Zahner: Yeah. Interestingly, Wendy, an example of a company who does that very well, that is sort of, um, the tension between being socially and environmentally responsible and being for profit is Patagonia. Yes. Yes. Um, and it was a company that I was really fortunate to work for and frankly, the first time in my career.
[00:13:02] Where I felt like we could focus on the bottom line, but use that bottom line for good.
[00:13:06] Yes.
[00:13:07] Um, and Patagonia changed their mission statement some years ago now to, we're here to save our home planet, which for me just felt like an invitation to use the profit we make and, and the team we have and, and have this clear vision to actually be for profit, but for good as well.
[00:13:23] You don't have to be one or the other. And they're a great example of weather. They, they, the proof's in the pudding with them.
[00:13:29] Wendy Smith: And what we know about companies like Patagonia is that when there is this deeper sense of values, you actually invite in your employees absolutely. To be committed for the long term, to be engaged, to be, yeah.
[00:13:40] Uh, and, and so you invite in their productivity in a really powerful way rather than turn them opposing and, and. We're certainly seeing a backlash against that right now. Yeah. In corporate culture. Mm-hmm. Yeah. In the book, we, we, um, and so our, our book is both and thinking, and in the book we draw on the example of Paul Pullman mm-hmm.
[00:13:58] At Unilever, who had very powerfully turned around the company. Through a commitment to both social and environmental outcomes. And what I really value in the way that he thought about that was that it wasn't that the social and environmental goals and commitments were coming at odds with the financial ones and 'cause certainly they did in the moment, they had to make some very difficult decisions about some of their products and how they put out their products and what products they did.
[00:14:26] But the, in the big picture. What he understood was that how do these things reinforce one another? Yeah. So that the social environmental enables them to double their profits and doubling their profits enables them to do more social and environmental good. Yeah. So it's that integrated relationship between them
[00:14:44] Alexis Zahner: and Wendy.
[00:14:45] In your experience, leaders like this, what are the mindset changes that they go through to actually enable them? To have the ability to hold space for both end thinking.
[00:14:54] Wendy Smith: Yeah. In our research, we've done some research on what we talk about as a paradox mindset. Mm-hmm. So in fact, I've done that research, uh, here in Australia mm-hmm.
[00:15:01] With a colleague, Josh Keller, who's at UNSW, and my colleagues, uh, over in France, Ella Marone Specter, and in the United States, Maryanne Lewis and Amy Eng. That that work that we've done, what we find is that there's sort of two big pieces to being able to hold this space. The first is. You actually experience and acknowledge the tensions.
[00:15:21] Mm-hmm. So are there tensions there and are you willing to acknowledge and hold them? So, so often when we experience these uncomfortable tensions, we like to sweep them under the rug. Mm-hmm. And pretend they don't exist and assume that we can just barge forth with that. Yeah. So do you, do you notice them and do you see them?
[00:15:39] And then can you shift. Your mindset from this either or as we're talking about into holding both simultaneously, living into the complexity, acknowledging both. And the third piece, so those are the two that have. Comprise this research, and we find that leaders that can do that are promoted more often.
[00:16:00] They have more creative outcomes, they actually have better job satisfaction. They're happier with their job. Mm-hmm. So that we find in the research. The third component, which I'll just add, is that in the work that I've done with my colleague Maryanne Lewis, and in some of the research as well, there's also an emotional component to this.
[00:16:18] You know, we were talking about how hard it is and emotional it is. It's not that people are comfortable, it's that they're able to accept the discomfort. We, we talk about it as finding comfort in the discomfort. You're able to pause to name the uncomfortable emotions, to not have to hide away from those, but rather just.
[00:16:39] Accept them, be in them, and then build from there. Yeah, I
[00:16:43] Sally Clarke: can imagine there's quite a few leaders right now who are listening and are like, I want that. Yes. What can I do to get there? What skills might I be able to take on to become more of an, uh, and both thinker?
[00:16:53] Wendy Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so in our book, we, uh, we talk about A, B, C, D, I wanna just say that we spent a lot of time thinking about the ladies, but, uh, but um.
[00:17:04] Assumptions, boundaries, comfort dynamics, A, B, C, D. But um, the first step. Which is this assumptions, which is our mindsets, which is it. What we find is that the, it's, it's a little bit like meditating, one might say right there. It's not that you jump in and become a, a zen monk. You jump in and start at the very beginning with.
[00:17:26] Noticing your breath and the corollary for noticing your breath for both. And is noticing how often you frame a question as an or
[00:17:36] Alexis Zahner: and
[00:17:36] Wendy Smith: just change the question. Change the question. We like to, um, quote a philosopher, Paul Watler, and he says the problem is not the problem. The problem is how we think about the problem.
[00:17:49] Hmm. And in this, in some experimental research that my colleague Ella, uh, Marone Specter in France did, just inviting people in the lab to change a question from either you could do this or you could do this, to asking how can you accommodate? How can you have a really productive career and. Really fabulous family work life.
[00:18:15] Mm-hmm. Like how can you make that happen? Mm-hmm. How can you just, this morning we were talking, I was talking to a large tech company that really was sort of doubling down on hyper-focused tech advancement. How can you advance tech? And make sure that your people are productive and engaged and taken care of and coming along for the ride so that it's not just what the company needs or the individual needs.
[00:18:37] How can we accommodate these both that just changing the question, invite us into a whole lot of creativity in the answers.
[00:18:44] Alexis Zahner: I think Wendy, what stands out to me at an individual level for that is it feels like a call to step outside of our own limiting beliefs to an extent. Yes. And we've kind of discussed the fact that it is uncomfortable to sit in the complexity of paradox, and we find comfort in simplicity and you know, I know through my career and life, this idea that it's either path A or path B just gives me.
[00:19:08] What feels like clarity in the moment between the two options, but in fact, what we're negating is the thousands of other options that might be on the table. Yeah. If we took a moment to pause and say, Hmm, maybe the question isn't, is it path A or path B, but how do we chart a new route? Yeah. Is there a path C?
[00:19:25] Wendy Smith: Is there a path A And the most interesting thing that I found by doing workshops is, uh. People hear this idea of both and and they nod their heads. Yes. Yes. And then you invite them, okay, so what's the tension you're facing and what's your both? And, and they're like, no, there's no both. And here, so what I started to do in workshops is say, okay, turn to the person next to you and.
[00:19:48] Find their both and mm-hmm. And we can sort of, we can see other people's both ands more effectively than we can see our own harshly because of the ways that we get stuck in our own biases and our own mindsets and our own, uh, ways of thinking, and we can't get outside of those. It sounds
[00:20:05] Sally Clarke: like that could be a really great addition to our decision making framework as leaders as well to be.
[00:20:11] Allowing ourselves to lean on other people, to seek that sort of outside perspective so that we're not just succumbing to our own assumptions, biases, and, and other sort of limiting beliefs.
[00:20:21] Wendy Smith: I think that's what coaching has become. Mm-hmm. And, but, but I think people will often push back against their coach.
[00:20:26] No, no, no, no, no. So effective coaching is, oh, can you really, am I open enough that you can help me?
[00:20:32] Alexis Zahner: Mm-hmm.
[00:20:33] Wendy Smith: Open up to a different way of, or no, naming my limiting belief and opening up to another way of thinking about it. And again, to, to where we started. What I find is, um, a lot of our limiting beliefs are connected to our fears and our inability to be vulnerable.
[00:20:48] Yeah. So are we willing to be open to our fears and be vulnerable in the face of our fears?
[00:20:55] Alexis Zahner: Mm. Now you mentioned BC in D there as well, Wendy. Yeah. Can we quickly go through those as well?
[00:21:00] Wendy Smith: Um, well, I'm gonna go A to C. Yeah. So A is about assumptions in our mindsets and how we think. C is what we were saying earlier.
[00:21:07] Find comfort in the discomfort our emotions. So there's our head and our heart bringing those together. B and d um, is the language we use around the structures around us. So if assumptions and comfort around how we show up as an individual. Boundaries and dynamics are around how we create the context that enables us to continue to think both.
[00:21:29] And so, b boundaries is what are the structures, the scaffolding, the ways in which we can support ourselves. And part of those structures have to do with things like, um, in companies naming a higher purpose. Hmm. Uh, overarching goal of vision. Really helps to accommodate competing demands. So we like to use, for example, Paul Pullman's work at Unilever.
[00:21:54] He said when we interviewed him and he came into Unilever, the first thing he did was set a higher aspirational vision of making sustainable living, everyday living. And by doing that, whenever these tensions would come up, do we create. Smaller units so that there's higher margins on those units or bigger units of whatever it might be.
[00:22:16] Shampoo so that we use less packaging and it's more environmental. And that's like a real dilemma, you know, how do we package our goods to think about that? They would constantly go back to their higher purpose vision to put themselves together between the finance people and the sustainability people to have those conversations.
[00:22:33] So B is about the boundaries and the the scaffolding we create. And then g. Is about the living into the dynamics, the ongoing processual changes and, and, um, here is where we would speak to earlier. Paradoxes never go away. Yeah, we have to make decisions, but they never go away. And, and I'll, I'll just offer up one quick thought, Sue, and we talk about.
[00:22:59] When we navigate paradoxes, we talk about sort of two types of outcomes, and we call them the mule and the tightrope walker. So when people think about paradox and they think about both, and oftentimes there's this assumption that there's this win-win, ideal, ultimate creative integration that accommodates both needs simultaneously.
[00:23:20] Mm-hmm. When I was doing the work at IBM, I was looking for these both hands. Like if they're gonna hold these, these together, there's gotta be these moments where everything works out perfectly. You've got your innovation and your existing product together, and I found that happened. Sometimes, but very rarely.
[00:23:38] Mm. What I found instead was more of this dynamic approach. Oh we, oh, that's what we call the mule. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We call that the mule 'cause it's the smarter than a donkeys, stronger than a horse. You bring 'em together, you've got this bi, this biological hybrid. Instead, what we, what I found at IBM was that they were what we now call tightrope walking, which is that the leader, they, they were moving forward.
[00:24:01] But in order to go forward, they were making these decisions that were sort of sometimes leaning toward their innovation and other times leaning toward their existing product, but they were sort of making these micro shifts between them. They weren't. Over investing in their innovation that they forgot about the existing product or over leaning to the existing product that they had no space for innovation.
[00:24:23] They were tightrope walking. So like the tightrope walker, they're sort of tweaking left and right in order to stay balanced and go forward. And this is the kind of approach so that, so that they're making decisions, but these decisions are really leaving in the bigger picture, the possibility of, of all, you know, of, of moving between them.
[00:24:45] I think this is the kind of approach that makes sense for us when we think about work-life balance. Mm. You know, it's not, we're over focused on work that we burn out or we're over. Like we've just totally unplugged that we come back to and yeah. Inbox of 5,000 that it's almost impossible to get back in.
[00:25:01] Mm. It's that we're making these tweaks of attending to these different needs in our lives so that we can over the time accommodate both.
[00:25:10] Sally Clarke: I think that's just such a beautiful reflection of the sort of nuanced nature of so much of leadership and life. Yeah. Wendy as well. And I think, you know, I'd love it if you could sort of share with us, 'cause we, before the conversation again, we were also talking about some of the correlations that were, between the research that you're doing around paradox thinking and.
[00:25:27] Deep, ancient wisdom that has existed Yeah. In our species for a long time. And I was, I'd love it if you could share a little bit with our listeners about your insights into that, that sort of alignment there.
[00:25:36] Wendy Smith: Yeah. Um, uh, my colleague and co-author, Maryanne Lewis and I were so grateful we won this award from an organization called Thinkers 50.
[00:25:44] It was the Breakthrough Idea Award. We are so honored for this 'cause. Indeed, we think that. Both and thinking is really important to the future. And I got to get up and give this sort of acceptance speech at this big gala and I said, you know, you're giving us this award for a breakthrough idea, but this idea is thousands of years old.
[00:26:03] Yeah. Uh, we've been thinking, you know, we've had thinkers leaning into this notion of. Interdependent opposites is the foundation of our world. You know, this love and hate going together, black and white, uh, you know, work and life, self and other. Yeah, global and local. Um, and that's an idea that's come all the way from Buddhism and Eastern philosophy and Confucianism and Daoism.
[00:26:30] From Greek philosophy. And as I was saying to you both when I, uh, first came to Australia and I was saying that, uh, our indigenous colleagues said to me, you know, Wendy, that's great, but it's not just 2,500 years old with Eastern. This is like core and inherent to aboriginal thinking, to indigenous thinking of this ecosystem of interdependent opposites coming together.
[00:26:51] That's what we are trying to bring out and bring back into leadership and organizations. Hmm. And you know, I, I'll just say I. One of the things I've been fascinated by is that anybody who studies physics mm-hmm. Has seen that we've moved from Newtonian physics, very linear. Yeah. Into quantum physics, which is all paradoxical.
[00:27:10] Alexis Zahner: Yeah.
[00:27:10] Wendy Smith: Anyone that studies psychoanalysis and the, so physics is about the material world. Anyone who studies psychoanalysis and individuals knows that we've moved from very much thinking about individual traits and specific to thinking about this sort of. Interdependence, psychoanalytic, bringing young in, bringing together the self and the ease.
[00:27:30] Mm-hmm. The shadow self. The, and so I like to say that we in organizations and leadership are a little late to the paradox party. Mm-hmm. Like, it's time for us to
[00:27:39] Alexis Zahner: join in and come into that world. Yeah. And there's no better time, I think, um, being the global landscape we're operating in now. Yeah. Um, and Wendy.
[00:27:48] Can you explain for us a little bit, you know, I guess the antithesis of both end thinking is either or thinking yeah. What do we stand to lose when we get stuck in that style of thinking? Hmm.
[00:27:59] Wendy Smith: Um, you know, we like to say that either or is. Limited at best. Yeah. And it's really detrimental at worse. And, uh, what we find, so I'll, I'll just, we find sort of three patterns of why it's problematic.
[00:28:13] The first is that because we like to be consistent, we pick an approach and then when we, we call it going down the rabbit hole, we just get stuck in that approach and can't see something alternative. So we, you know. We were talking earlier about, um, one of the examples we use in in the book is Lego. Lego, yeah.
[00:28:32] Right? And we see this all the time with companies. Companies pick an approach and it's very hard for them to change. So Lego had this approach to the interlocking brick. All these companies were moving into all these, and they said, no, no, no, no, no. This is the way we do things. We're gonna. Stick with it.
[00:28:46] That's the way. And so we get stuck. It's true in our careers too. We pick a career, we pick it. Yeah. And then we, you know, surround ourselves with other people who are similar to us, that we get stuck in our own expertise. It's hard for us to, to shift and change.
[00:28:58] Alexis Zahner: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:59] Wendy Smith: And then when we do shift. The second pattern is that we swing all the way in the opposite direction.
[00:29:05] So we call that the wrecking ball.
[00:29:07] Alexis Zahner: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:08] Wendy Smith: Because you know, you like let go of the baby with the bath water, you lose the good with the bad. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So we were talking about this in terms of politics. You know, you see these massive shifts between more progressive liberal politics, the more conservative politics, and we wipe out the good along the way.
[00:29:23] Yeah. Rather than thinking in the how can we bring these together, or we see this with Lego, you. You shift all the way into being so super innovative. Yeah. And it turns out actually with Lego, they almost hit the brink of bankruptcy 'cause they were so innovative that they didn't have any discipline left.
[00:29:39] Yeah. Right. And, and then actually in the, the worst and, and we're definitely seeing this. Today in our world is that as people get more and more fearful and they pick a position, they will double down and resist the opposite position. We get into these fighting, polarizing, yeah. Worlds, and we talk about that as trench warfare.
[00:29:59] Yeah. 'cause you can imagine, you pick a position, you sort of dig your trends. You surround yourself by people who agree with you.
[00:30:05] Speaker 4: Yep. Your lockdown
[00:30:07] Wendy Smith: and you shoot out at the other side. Yeah. In a very dehumanizing way. You don't even listen or engage or, yeah. 'cause it's so hard to hear people that are different than us share their positions and we're, we're, it's if, if, if I were to like wish anything on the world, it's that we could be able to have the confidence to listen to people that are different than us without being threatened.
[00:30:31] You don't have to agree with them, but just. Treat them with respect and dignity and be open to that engagement, I think we would have a much more productive world. Mm.
[00:30:40] Sally Clarke: I'm so glad we went there, Wendy. 'cause I think it's so important for us to understand what. We can stand to lose and the sort of to motivate us all to kind of perhaps when it is uncomfortable or when it is perhaps inconvenient.
[00:30:53] 'cause we want a decision now. Yeah. To take that time to hold space for exploring the paradox and, you know, and the intersectionality, the way that these things can actually, um, grow of their own volition and kind of. Give rise to so many other possibilities as well. Yeah. And I think, I feel like we could talk to you for days.
[00:31:12] Yeah. Um, but we will just ask one final question for our listeners today to I guess to understand if they're thinking right now. This sounds so amazing. I wanna bring this into my leadership right now. What would be a helpful starting point to start to explore and both thinking.
[00:31:30] Wendy Smith: Typically, and indeed I will reinforce that the number one space that I see is changing is noticing the or and changing the question to the end.
[00:31:39] Mm-hmm. In the times that we were, we're living through right now. I would also invite a second piece, which is be open to hearing and talking with people that are different than you. That doesn't mean you have to agree with them, but be open to the conversation and see what that feels like because it's so hard to do and yet it's so important for us to lead to more complex thinking and more possibility in a world that feels very fractured.
[00:32:08] Amazing.
[00:32:09] Sally Clarke: One final thing I have to ask, just in your own, if you don't mind sharing, in your own personal sort of practice, is there anything sort of in terms of your own. Things that you do to help you stay as capable of as possible of being open to paradox.
[00:32:24] Wendy Smith: Yes. Right. I just wanna go back to research. As research.
[00:32:26] I study this. Yeah. Because it's so hard. Yeah. So I wanna just empathize, uh, that this is hard. Um, I, uh, have really leaned into, and again, we were talking about Buddhist practice and meditation. I've leaned into the pause as a really important I. Tool meaning that, and when I notice that I'm getting triggered because someone doesn't agree with me, or when I'm getting triggered because I'm getting scared.
[00:32:55] This idea of the pause, this sort of famous quote from Viktor Frankl that mm-hmm. You know, between stimulus and response, that's where there's so much possibility. Yeah. To me, that actually means. Taking a step back, taking a deep breath, and waiting a moment. I mean, to the point of very pragmatically. I used to and now have continued, I would go into meetings and put a little like X mark on my hands.
[00:33:22] And the x mark was a reminder to me. Don't jump in and talk quickly when you have an idea, take a deep breath. Mm. Listen first, let people talk. Digest those ideas. And so I have leaned in a lot to the, the pause and then the, after the pause, I've also leaned into, um, the notion of. Accepting that the difficult emotions are there and not trying to hide them.
[00:33:49] Yeah. And here I'm a huge fan of work by Tara Brock. Yes. Tara, Tara Brock. And her work on radical acceptance. Yes. Yes. Where instead of, 'cause we know this is true in, in psychology, the more that you try and reject something, an idea, a feeling, the more powerfully it comes back to buck you. Yeah. So, just saying yes, that yes, I'm feeling fearful.
[00:34:12] Yes. I'm feeling defensive. Yes, that's okay because the more that I can do that, the more that I can be then let myself in the next moment be open to possibilities.
[00:34:22] Alexis Zahner: Wendy, very profound and personal insight. Yeah. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. Um, it has been a privilege to have you here today on we are human Leaders in Sydney, so thank you for being here with us.
[00:34:33] Thank you both for the work that you are doing to get companies and to get us all to
[00:34:36] Wendy Smith: be leading in a much more human way. I'm really grateful Oh mean so much. Thank you.
[00:34:41] Sally Clarke: Thank you so much for joining us at, we Are Human Leaders. Lex, what was your key takeaway from this conversation?
[00:34:47] Alexis Zahner: I think the key for me was really about finding some comfort in our discomfort and the ability to actually just hold space for that.
[00:34:55] Um, when Wendy spoke about that acceptance of uncomfortable emotions, it really rang true for me personally. What was your key takeaway, Sal? I think
[00:35:02] Sally Clarke: it was that too, and this kind of idea of the potential that we can unpack when we really allow ourselves to, to enter that sort of space of paradox thinking.
[00:35:10] Alexis Zahner: Absolutely. If you would like to learn more about Wendy's book, both End Thinking, you can find out all the details on our show notes at www.wearehumanleaders.com. It's been a privilege to sit down with yourself and have this conversation. Super fun as always,
[00:35:24] Sally Clarke: legs. Yeah.
[00:35:25] Alexis Zahner: See you next time.