“The old me would have fired the whole team and started over.”

That’s a quote from Joe, a new GM who inherited his leadership team through a merger.  He and his team were charged with turning around a failing global business unit, and it wasn’t going well.  Sure, many of them were doing OK with their country assignments, but as a whole, it was anything but a team effort.  Joe was frustrated and exhausted trying to hold everything together.

This blog isn’t, however, about how to build teams.  That’s for another day.  It is about what happens when you pick an extreme and act on it fully.  Sure, Joe could start over with a hand picked team.   The down side of that decision is that Joe remains a constant.  Whatever he was  (or was not) bringing to the team, as their leader, would still be the same.

When we make either/or choices, it’s usually to relieve our discomfort or pain.  By the nature of an extreme, it’s all about “me.”  Thus, we don’t have an opportunity to change, learn or grow.  Unfortunately, we often end up creating the same problems for ourselves in the future.

So, what’s the alternative?  If we’re not choosing either/or, what do we do?   Practice duality.  We not only look at both/and, we also consider the greater good, larger purpose.  For Joe, that means looking at his personal needs and each team member’s and the team’s as a whole and the organization’s and the customer’s.  It means considering skills and challenges in addition to needs and comfort (the easy way).  It means no longer bearing the load all yourself (victim) and reaching out to co-create solutions together.  And, yes, it means Joe looking at how he can change, learn and grow in the process.

What either/or choices are you facing in your work or life?  How might you broaden your choices to include others and consider the greater good?  What collaborative solutions might you engage in?  How can you get the best of both sides of the either/or plus more?