Both/And Thinking with Marianne Lewis

The Evolving Leader

In this episode of the Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender talk to Marianne Lewis. Marianne is dean and professor of management at the Lindner College of Business, University of Cincinnati having previously served as dean of Cass (now Bayes) Business School at City University, London, and as a Fulbright scholar. A thought leader in organizational paradoxes, she explores tensions and competing demands surrounding leadership and innovation. Marianne has been recognized among the world’s most-cited researchers in her field (Web of Science) and received the Paper of the Year award (2000) and Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review.

Marianne Lewis’s book (co-author with Wendy K Smith) ‘Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems’ was published in 2022.

0.00 Introduction

4.36 Can you give us an overview of your work?

5.22 How do you distinguish between tensions, dilemmas, and the paradoxes in our lives?

7.16 Why is it so important to be working on paradox right now for leaders?

9.13 Can you walk us through the four types of paradox that you identify and how we experience them?

14.01 How does either/or thinking cause issues for leaders and can you give us some examples of how that sets us up to fail?

19.10 The trench warfare, or the war of defences seems to be prevalent in politics right now. What do you think is causing that either/or thinking?

21.26 You describe a pros and cons list as being one of the mechanisms that encourages either/or thinking. What other mental shortcuts are leaders and others taking that encourages either/or thinking?

26.05 How do we enable both/and thinking?

34.58 You mention that it’s not easy to look at the assumptions that we should consider if we want to build this paradox mindset. Why is that and how have you helped leaders find a different way forward?

39.48 Knowing that people want to move away from negatively experienced emotions, what other tactics or approaches do you take with leaders to arrive at this alternative approach without moving away from those negative emotions?

46.20 Organisations are designed primarily to align resources with their goals and minimise risk. Can you tell us about how your research and ideas can help leaders think about structures to stabilise the organisation in the face of uncertainty?

50.33 Can you tell us about the research you’re doing into how individuals manage building a paradox mindset?

54.19 Did you find a difference in motivations behind various people’s experience with either/or thinking?

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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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Chapters

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Can you give us an overview of your work? (00:04:36)

3. How do you distinguish between tensions, dilemmas, and the paradoxes in our lives? (00:05:22)

4. Why is it so important to be working on paradox right now for leaders? (00:07:16)

5. Can you walk us through the four types of paradox that you identify and how we experience them? (00:09:13)

6. How does either/or thinking cause issues for leaders and can you give us some examples of how that sets us up to fail? (00:14:01)

7. The trench warfare, or the war of defences seems to be prevalent in politics right now. What do you think is causing that either/or thinking? (00:19:10)

8. You describe a pros and cons list as being one of the mechanisms that encourages either/or thinking. What other mental shortcuts are leaders and others taking that encourages either/or thinking? (00:21:26)

9. How do we enable both/and thinking? (00:26:05)

10. You mention that it’s not easy to look at the assumptions that we should consider if we want to build this paradox mindset. Why is that and how have you helped leaders find a different way forward? (00:34:58)

11. Knowing that people want to move away from negatively experienced emotions, what other tactics or approaches do you take with leaders to arrive at this alternative approach without moving away from those negative emotions? (00:39:48)

12. Organisations are designed primarily to align resources with their goals and minimise risk. Can you tell us about how your research and ideas can help leaders think about structures to stabilise the organisation in the face of uncertainty? (00:46:20)

13. Can you tell us about the research you’re doing into how individuals manage building a paradox mindset? (00:50:33)

14. Did you find a difference in motivations behind various people’s experience with either/or thinking? (00:54:19)