The skill of holding polarities

Holding polarities is a skill – for leadership, for coaching and for life.  What is a polarity? The Cambridge Dictionary defines Polarity (noun) as “The quality of being opposite”. There are polarities at all layers of our complex world:

• Physiological polarities include inhaling and exhaling; rest and exertion; tension and relaxation.
• Psychological polarities include self-criticism and self-praise; suppressing and expressing.
• Social polarities include joining and separating; giving space and taking space; disappointing and pleasing. 
• Organisational polarities include investing and cost-saving; centralised power and decentralised power.
• On a cosmic scale, polarities include structure and chaos; stability and instability.

I find it useful to think of polarities as interdependent pairs that define and support each another. What would inhaling be without exhaling? What would it be like to always please and never disappoint people? What would it be like if there was only centralised power or only decentralised power?

We get in a pickle with polarities when we strongly attach to one pole over another. As my Gestalt teacher, Stuart Simon, says “We have a tendency to get attached to one end of a polarity and call it ‘good’ and make the other end ‘bad’.” We need to resist this urge to split and to over-simplify. 

The art of holding polarities is to see the value and the cost of each side and how they are both necessary in the world. As Barry Johnson says in his book Polarity Management, “Polarities to manage are sets of opposites that can’t function well independently. Because the two sides of a polarity are interdependent, you cannot choose one as a “solution” and neglect the other.”  What would an organisation be if it could only focus on investing or only on cost-saving? What would a person be if they could only ever self-criticise or only ever self-praise? We will need both poles at different times for different reasons and we will always be managing the upsides and downsides of our choices.

Knowing the concept of Polarities can help us to hold a more nuanced view of the world and avoid polarisation. There are benefits and costs of each pole and we need to hold both as part of one dynamic, interconnected whole. The more we are aware of polarities the more complexity we can hold and the more tools we have available to us to meet our challenges and dilemmas.

Here’s a corporate example:

The setting is an Executive Team meeting at which a big decision has to be made. The CFO, Herbert, believes the decision should be made by consensus, but the CEO, Gertrude, believes the decision should be made by her as the positional authority.  As the discussion continues, Herbert argues for the benefits of a consensus decision – we all need to support the outcome! Then Gertude argues for the benefits of an authoritative decision – we just need a quick decision! Herbert starts to feel quite angry with Gertrude for not valuing inclusion, Gertrude starts to feel angry with Herbert for not valuing pace. Pretty soon they are stuck, each holding strongly to their pole and rejecting the other outright.  At this point CRO, Jenny, feeling the discomfort of the impasse, gets impatient – oh for goodness sake, why are we making this so complicated! But the breakthrough comes when George the COO pipes up – hang on a minute. I can see the upsides and downsides of both options. So let’s dig underneath a bit…”. The group end up asking each other the following questions:

After the meeting, can Gertrude reflect on her preference for pace and notice when inclusion is more important even if it takes time? Can Herbert reflect on his preference for inclusion and notice when an authoritative decision is a better fit for the problem at hand? Can Jenny seek to get more comfortable with an impasse and not reach for simplicity too fast? Next time, can the whole team choose the right decision-making tool for the job – consensus, authoritative, consultative etc rather than repeating old habits?

The more that each of us can notice our preferences in a polarity – what we call ‘bad’ and what we call ‘good’ – and be willing to explore, the more nuanced our thinking will be. So, notice when you start to cling to a pole and pause… inhale and exhale.

with love and thanks to Brigid who encouraged me to write something on Polarities and to my colleagues and teachers at the Gestalt International Study Center who are Polarity Wizards!