Written by Patrick Boëdec, May 2nd 2022
During discussions, in meetings, especially when they are animated, it is frequent that the exchanges are irrevocably oriented towards the "OR", as if the envisaged tracks had to be opposed to each other. This is without counting the endless "What if..." "What if..." that make people turn around in circles looking for improbable cases.
"It's either this or that"; "If we don't invest then we won't be able to...," "What if the market isn't there" and "What if we're too far ahead... "What if..."
Whenever people camp on their positions, they are comforting themselves in the divisive "OR".
As everyone knows, life is neither white nor black, nothing is clear-cut. However, it is easy to put everything in opposition; the "OR" separates, distances the opposites even more, whereas the "AND" unites them, reconciles them.
The "AND" is subtle, it puts in perspective the different sensibilities, enriches the palette of options. It favors the proliferation of ideas, whereas the "OR" is reductive, sometimes caricatural to the point of derision, it contributes to reducing the field of possibilities.
OR" is sequential, whereas agility consists in compressing the decision process and parallelizing activities. In short, it is about speeding up by simplifying.
The entrepreneur explores alternative solutions by changing the prism of analysis, by shifting the center of gravity, by thinking "outside the box", by thinking outside the box and by combining scenarios with pragmatism.
One of the qualities of the entrepreneur is to adopt the "AND" rather than the "OR" which reduces his or her length of view.
Just as the plumb line refocuses what is scattered, thinking on the margins helps to converge opinions, which at the outset might seem contradictory, towards an option that unites and reconciles. The famous third way is the "AND".
According to recent studies by McKinsey, KPMG and articles published in Harvard Business Review, the success rate of mergers is between 20% and 50% maximum.
If we look closely, one of the main causes of post-merger integration failures is not knowing how to impose the "AND", it is either one of the systems or the other, therefore the "OR". This amounts to opposing two organizations rather than aggregating them in the best of both. You can find an article, The 10 golden rules for a successful post-merger integration, on my website.
Also, stay away from "Ifs" which is probably the most time and energy consuming interjection in business that can often turn into psychological games and resistance.
I've also seen too many times where people wonder if they would be able to do this or that, be up to a new job, new responsibilities...
I always tell them, that there are no answers to these metaphysical questions, until they do it.
In real life, every day brings its share of decisions that must be made with common sense. Gradually, one after the other, the situation, the project advances. There are no difficulties in management, no problem remains without solutions as long as we know how to reason, that is, to separate the symptoms from the root causes, to focus on what impacts and to move away from the specific, to identify the causal links.
There is a virtue in action and especially in the feedback to be gained from it. And this is, without a doubt, much more important than the sometimes sterile existential questions that delay execution. We generally learn more in action than in reflection.
And... it is quite possible to go fast and do things intelligently... Here again we are in the "AND" and not in the "OR", "And... If"... it should happen, then, it would still be, well enough, time to decide...
Comments