{"id":583,"date":"2016-01-14T15:31:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T15:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/?p=583"},"modified":"2016-12-13T08:14:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-13T08:14:04","slug":"paradoxes-at-work-for-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/paradoxes-at-work-for-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Paradoxes At Work For Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Paradox-photo-Please-Do-Not-Touch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-584\" src=\"http:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Paradox-photo-Please-Do-Not-Touch-300x230.jpg\" alt=\"Paradox photo - Please Do Not Touch\" width=\"695\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Paradox-photo-Please-Do-Not-Touch-300x230.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Paradox-photo-Please-Do-Not-Touch-676x517.jpg 676w, https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Paradox-photo-Please-Do-Not-Touch.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 695px) 100vw, 695px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<strong>paradox<\/strong>\u00a0is a statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true (or wrong at the same time).<\/p>\n<p>Figuring\u00a0out and thinking\u00a0through\u00a0a\u00a0paradox is an important and valuable exercise in any organizational environment, for individuals and teams. \u00a0This also becomes valuable\u00a0for leadership decision making and judgment calls.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking through paradoxes is also extremely useful to stretch, question and develop\u00a0our\u00a0own thinking ability and approach. \u00a0From personal experiences, the lack of clarity and absence of active dialogues on such topics can lead to confusion, frustration and stress within organizations. \u00a0Getting caught in \u2018no man\u2019s land&#8217; on\u00a0decisions happens more frequently\u00a0than we imagine.<\/p>\n<p>Leaders encounter many of the following paradoxes frequently (all but one are from the book,\u00a0\u201cHR From The Outside In&#8221;).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Business &amp;\u00a0People<br \/>\n<\/strong>How do you balance\u00a0the tradeoff between people and business?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Organization &amp; Individual<br \/>\n<\/strong>How do you manage the tensions between individual talent and teamwork, individual ability and organizational capability? How do you balance differentiating top performers and rest\u00a0of employees?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Outside &amp;\u00a0Inside<\/strong><br \/>\nHow do you simultaneously understand the dynamics and operate in the external and internal environments?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Strategic &amp; Administrative<br \/>\n<\/strong>How do you balance flawless execution of administrative and operational actions with strategic adaptation to future business scenarios?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Short Term &amp; Long Term<br \/>\n<\/strong>How do you choose between short term and long term benefits, especially in\u00a0decision making?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There may also be\u00a0relationships to be considered among these paradoxes. \u00a0e.g., balancing the tradeoffs between business and people may need to take into consideration the balance between the future and past.<\/p>\n<p>We can\u00a0build clarity through a continuing, active dialogue with ourselves, our stakeholders, teams regarding our thinking, core principles and approach. \u00a0This becomes fundamental for success and increased effectiveness in a\u00a0constantly changing world.<\/p>\n<p>It is great to see that the 2016 RBL Group\/University of Michigan HR Competency model includes &#8216;Paradox Navigator&#8217; and brings out many tensions commonly faced &#8211; tensions between global and local business demands, between the need for change and stability, between the internal focus on employees and external focus on customers and investors, and between high level strategic issues and operational details.<\/p>\n<p>How do you think about and manage\u00a0these paradoxes?<\/p>\n<p>What other paradoxes do you encounter?<\/p>\n<p>(Previously posted on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/paradoxes-work-leaders-tojo-eapen?trk=mp-reader-card\">Linkedin<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Suggested reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Paradox &#8211; Wikipedia &#8211; https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paradox<\/li>\n<li>Book \u2013 \u201cHR From The Outside In \u2013 Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources\u201d; Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank, Mike Ulrich; McGraw Hill.<\/li>\n<li>Paradoxes for HR &#8211;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/paradoxes-for-hr\/\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.tojoeapen.com\/blog\/paradoxes-for-hr\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>2016 HR Competency Model &#8211; The RBL Group, University of Michigan<\/li>\n<li>Image Credit &#8211; Zach Stern, The Observer&#8217;s Paradox,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/foter.com,\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/foter.com,<\/a>https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/zachstern\/7532320120\/<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A\u00a0paradox\u00a0is a statement that apparently contradicts itself and yet might be true (or wrong at the same time). Figuring\u00a0out and thinking\u00a0through\u00a0a\u00a0paradox is an important and valuable exercise in any organizational environment, for individuals and teams. \u00a0This also becomes valuable\u00a0for leadership decision making and judgment calls. Thinking through paradoxes is also extremely useful to stretch, question [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coaching","category-hr","category-leadership","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tojoeapen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}