Paradox Pair #25: The Listening Paradox
To listen well, we have to be willing to pause our problem-solving skills, which allows us the space and attention to gather relevant information.
James LaPlaine
Reconsideration & Judgement (#24)
When we establish our methods and belief systems we should set an expiration on the choices we make, knowing that in a year’s time or two that revisiting our approach will be worthwhile.
Ephemeral & Long-lasting (Paradox Pair #23)
Developing a solution is like solving a mystery, adding forensic knowledge with each attempt, exploring clues and assembling a sequence. The solution to our mystery today will be replaced by future ideas, making everything more ephemeral than we initially imagined.
Paradox Pair #22: Novel & Common
What was once groundbreaking becomes familiar, that which was newfangled transforms into a standard.
Harder or Smarter: The Improvement Paradox (#21)
The Improvement Paradox: To create sustainable capability improvement, current performance first must drop. It's always better to work smarter versus harder.
Teams & Individuals (#20)
To build a great enterprise we must invest and grow at the individual level. Motivated individuals do better work. When we align on a common goal, a strategic initiative, with a clarity of purpose, we give rise to a sense of belonging. Healthy teams generate a currency of connection.
Trust & Change (#19)
We know that without change all things gradually decline toward entropy. Therefore change is required — and we still resist it because our brain interprets it as a threat. Trust provides a focal point, a foundation upon which to erect the necessary agents of change.
Currency, Creativity, and the Bermuda Quadrilateral
Engineering draws invention from science, informs the practice of design, and is further enhanced by the reimagining of the world through works of art. All too often we think of these as singular pursuits, when in fact they are highly related and often entangled.
Preparation & the Unforeseeable
If something is knowable, then the cause of not knowing it is one of preparation. Ironically, the best way to blunt unforeseeable events is also in preparation.
Faith & Facts (The Stockdale Paradox)
We have faith in the future we are creating. We know that faith, however, is not blind optimism. We must face the facts so we stay grounded with our confidence.
Rigor & Quality & Nuance (#16)
Quality is assessed of the end result, where rigor is measured of the work. Yet we lack cultural context. To balance these themes the result must allow for nuance. We can operate within the tensions of rigor, quality, and nuance to celebrate strengths from our process and virtue from our creativity.
Precision & Ambiguity
We can rally around an ambitious, often ambiguous, mission — one that lacks the precision necessary for immediate action. Once we've allowed the audacity of ambiguity to affect us we focus our efforts on building a precise plan of action.