This is week 4 of our series based on lessons I’ve learned working in a central role. This week is about being comfortable standing in the tension between different ideas.

I’ve mentioned before that in this role I have to navigate a lot of ambiguity without have any formal power.  As a result of this, I often find myself in the center of competing forces.  I’m being asked to scale enterprise solutions while moving fast.  I’m challenged to help meet the needs of individuals while creating things that meet the needs of the masses.  I’m asked to customize things to specific needs while keeping things scalable.  I’m asked to experiment with new things while also standardizing.  I’m asked to encourage exploration while maintaining a level of intentional design and control.  I’m asked to imagine a future, build it, and drive adoption all at the same time (like building the airplane while flying and acting as air traffic control).

Let’s make some connections.  Have you ever felt trapped in the middle of competing ideas?  Maybe you’ve been asked to do more with less.  Maybe you’ve been asked to embrace failure, while also being told you can’t miss. Standing in the middle of ideas is a lot.  It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the complexity.  The instinct is to resolve the tension as quickly as possible, but the truth is that the tension will always be there.  The second instinct is to avoid the tension if you can’t resolve it. 

The beauty comes from standing in the middle of the tension and knowing it won’t break you.  The power comes from realizing multiple ideas can be true at the same time, and leaning into that until you see solutions and possibilities that never existed before.  Once you do that, you stop living in a black or white world.  You stop living in a world of this or that.  Instead, you begin living in a world of “Yes, and…” which is incredibly powerful.

The challenge- How will you embrace standing in the tension?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry