keymodels
Polarity management
How can polarity management improve people, teams, or organisational effectiveness?
Contents
Polarity management, the brainchild of Barry Johnson, an organisational and leadership development consultant, is a technique based on the idea that what we perceive as...
Polarity management helps leaders work with interdependent opposites whose benefits cannot be sustained by choosing only one side. Individual accountability and teamwork, stability and change, or central control and local autonomy may each be necessary over time. The task is to gain the upside of both while noticing when overuse of either creates its downside.
When to use it
- Use the technique when a recurring problem returns after the organisation swings to the apparent opposite solution.
- Use it when credible stakeholders defend opposing values and each side contains a legitimate benefit.
- Do not use it to avoid a decision that has a correct answer, a legal obligation or a non-negotiable safety or rights boundary.
Origins
Organisational-development consultant Barry Johnson developed Polarity Management® and the Polarity Map® to distinguish solvable problems from enduring polarities. A problem can be resolved; a polarity must be managed because choosing one pole exclusively eventually produces costs that renew demand for the other. Johnson’s work popularised a practical “both-and” alternative to reflexive either-or debate.
What it is
Suppose a manager sees too much individual work and prescribes teamwork. Teamwork can improve learning and coordination, but excessive emphasis can weaken ownership, slow decisions and suppress deep individual work. Returning entirely to individual effort recreates the original problem. The polarity is not a compromise halfway between the poles; it is a dynamic pattern in which the organisation needs the benefits of both.
A polarity map makes that pattern visible. The upper quadrants record the benefits of each pole and the lower quadrants record the costs that emerge when a pole is overused or pursued without the other.
L+ R+ Benefits of possibility 1 Benefits of possibility 2 Possibility 1 Possibility 2 Disadvantages of possibility 1 Disadvantages of possibility 2 L– R–the diagram below Polarity management 1
How to use it
Name the two poles neutrally so that neither is framed as virtuous and the other as defective. Define the shared higher purpose that requires both. Draw a square with L+ and R+ above the poles and L− and R− below them. Ask advocates of each pole to describe the other pole’s legitimate upside before discussing risk.
In a debate about office-based and home-based work, the initial complaint may sit in L− and the proposed answer in R+. Completing L+ and R− reveals what would be lost if the organisation moved wholly to one side:
the diagram below).
L+ R+
Can keep an eye on them Gives staff a sense of autonomy
On hand to answer questions and help Makes staff feel trusted
solve problems Reduced commuter stress
Easier to have impromptu catchups Can keep job even if they move houseEasier to brainstorm issues collectively Reduced greenhouse gases, carbon
Can more easily ensure quality of work emissions
Social contact Overcome geographical barriers
Shared meals Some evidence of increased
Easier to have impromptu meetings productivity
Easier to resolve IT issues Good for those with mobility issuesMore physical activity involved in
getting to work
Office-based
Teleworking
work
Fixed working hours stifle work–life Cannot guarantee that they are
balance working
Much of the work could be done Can’t have impromptu talks
anywhere Staff may feel isolated
Stress of commuting More difficult to resolve IT issues
Time-wasting interruptions Data security issuesNo more brainstorming in office
Loss of clear home/work boundaries
Staff may not have self-discipline to
work alone
Less team spirit
L– R–the diagram below Polarity management 2
Treat the entries as hypotheses. The teleworking map, for example, contains assumptions that will vary by role, person, technology and management practice. Replace them with evidence from the actual system.
Move around the map from the downside of one pole to the upside of the other, then to that pole’s downside and back to the first pole’s upside. Identify early-warning signals that show the system is overusing either side. Agree actions that strengthen each upside and guardrails that limit each downside. Review the indicators instead of waiting for another crisis-driven swing.
Final analysis.
The map is valuable because it converts a positional argument into joint system design. It can reveal why repeated “solutions” fail and help opponents recognise that they are protecting different parts of the same higher purpose.
Not every disagreement is a polarity. Misclassification can legitimise harmful conduct, delay a necessary choice or create false equivalence between evidence and opinion. First ask whether the issue can be solved, sequenced or governed by a clear standard. Use polarity management only when both poles remain genuinely necessary.
Top practical tip
Ask each side to state the other pole’s legitimate benefits. That step exposes the shared purpose and reduces the tendency to map one’s own upside against only the opponent’s downside.
Top pitfall
Do not call every difficult decision a polarity. Legal duties, safety thresholds and harmful behaviour require clear choices; “both-and” language must not become a way to avoid accountability.
Further reading
Johnson, B. (1996) Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. Amherst, MA: HRD Press.