Rethinking The Polarity Map with Dr. Joel Rothaizer

Episode Transcript
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Scott Allen (03:19):
Okay, everybody.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for checkingin wherever you are in the
world.
Today, I have a returningguest, Joel Rothaizer.
And he is a PhD psychologist,executive coach, organizational
consultant, and leadershipdevelopment specialist.
He's board certified inorganizational and business
consulting psychology and amaster certified coach through

(03:41):
the International CoachingFederation.
His book on leadership, calledClear Impact Building Leadership
Capacity, has been stronglyendorsed by Ken Wilbur.
The head of Integral Zen callsit the most integ on leadership
he's ever read.
Sir, this is our secondconversation.
I was just saying to you beforewe started recording that I

(04:04):
just really enjoyed our lastconversation.
And so I'm looking forward towhere we go this time.
Maybe bring listeners back intoyou.
And what's something that youwould like them to know about
you that isn't in the bio thatwe just read?

Dr. Joel Rothaizer (04:19):
When I was 41, my wife got me into distance
running.
And from the age of 43 to now,I have done 31 marathons all
longer.

Wow.
Okay.
Now when you say or longer,there's a there's a big spread
of what's possible.

Yes.
When I was younger, but stillobvious obviously over 43, I did
two 50Ks and one 50 miler.
Wow.
And uh the good news and thebad news on the 50 miler, I
actually won my age division.
Okay.
But I was also the only one whofinished.
So I was also last in my agedivision.

So oh well, I'm really, really looking forward
to the conversation today.
And I think we're gonna startat least uh on polarities.
And uh you had mentioned thatyou have kind of an interesting
and unique take on this that youwanted to share with listeners,
and so I'm excited to learn,and maybe we we jump in there.

Sounds good.
And you've had guests alreadywho have done some really good
things on polarity, so I want tobuild on that.
Um, I'm kind of at my polaritythinking 3.0 at this point.
I thought what I'd do is we'llactually do a polarity map, and
that way, even if people have noexperience with it, they can
get a feel for it.
And then I'll unpack what I'mdoing, what I did that might be

(05:40):
different from what some otherpeople do.
Great, perfect, awesome.
And we talked brieflybeforehand, we're gonna do
collaborative and decisive.
Okay.
And if you're following along,if you want to score a card at
home, make a two by two box witha lot of space in it.
At the left of the first row,make a plus sign.

(06:07):
At the left of the second row,make a greater than sign.
Um put a top box and a bottombox.
On the top and bottom boxes areabout two-thirds as long as the
overall chart.
So it kind of looks like a boxwith a hat on it and a bottom.

(06:31):
And then on the first row inbetween the first and second
box, make a circle and writecollaborative.
And on the second row inbetween the first and second
box, write decisive.
So this is kind of a genericframework for a color for a

(06:53):
polarity map, two by two plus onthe left, greater than on the
left.
I'll talk about that morelater.
But we'll start with the topleft box.
When you're actually doing apolarity map, you always start
with what you think somebody isbiased toward or overprivileged
toward.
That's the language andpolarities.

(07:14):
Um, here I'm just doing itgenerically so that if you're
listening to the podcast andyou're doing this for yourself,
you might be really balanced onthis, or you might find that you
are biased toward one over theother.
So let's start out, Scott.
What's good about being acollaborative leader?
What comes to mind?

Well, I think if you are a collaborative leader,
you uh are an individual who canfoster buy-in.
I think if you're acollaborative leader and you
create a space of psychologicalsafety and uh an environment
where people feel like they havevoice, then you can mitigate

(07:57):
some of your own cognitivebiases.
Get to a more holisticunderstanding potentially of the
of the problem we're workingon.
I mean, you obviously you needto have the right audience with
you to be to collaborate,actually, but I think it can
mitigate for some of your blindspots.
There can be shared ownership.

(08:18):
I think it it's another benefitof collaborative leadership is
that people feel like they arepartners in the process.
And obviously, then a byproductproduct of that might be that
buy-in.
When it's collaborative, peoplemight self-select into where

(08:40):
their energy is, and people havedifferent ideas of where they
want to contribute.
And so if we're relying onpeople's different strengths or
different energy levels of wherethey want to focus their
attention, that can be ofbenefit relying on their skill
set.
And I think probably given alot of that, you're gonna have

(09:02):
more likely a higher level ofintrinsic engagement.
You're gonna probably have somemore um discretionary effort
given.
It's just I've decided you aredoing X and the person has no
voice.
So those are a few things thatcome to mind for me about some

(09:22):
of the benefits of collaborativeleadership.

Yeah, that was really good.
Um I really don't have muchmore to add except to build on
what you said that complexissues require the integration
of multiple perspectives.
And a collaborative leadercreates that kind of safety and
trust, as you said, whereeveryone feels comfortable
giving their best ideas and thenintegrating them.

Yes.
Yes.
And I think another anotherelement of collaborative
leadership, especially whenwe're dealing with complexity,
because I I think in some waysthat's where this is most
appropriate when it's a complexadaptive challenge if we want to
use language.
But yes, I mean, I think Ithink there you're gonna

(10:08):
there'll be a spirit ofexperimentation.
There, there's there's ahumility in no one person has
the answer.
It's uh what's what do we thinkis our best guess as to the
best path forward?
And ultimately it's a littlebit of an experiment.
And again, if you don't havethat psychological safety and
you're just being decisive andtelling the group, well, the

(10:28):
military found out a long timeago you make a lot of mistakes.

Yeah, you know, and again, right now we're
just focused on what's goodabout being collaborative.
Okay.
Um which is important whenyou're doing one of these is to
try to keep it focused.
Um, but everything you said isreally is really good.
Um sense of shared ownership,it's energizing, it's engaging.
Okay, what's good about being adecisive leader?

Well, we get things done.
We move things forward at aquicker pace.
We have direction and it'sclear.
It's not confusing, confusing.
It's it's decisive, it's beendecided, and we're moving in a
certain direction.
Um if if I know if it's asimple or complicated problem,

(11:21):
if we want to go to SnowdenBoone, um I know the answer.
And I know how to develop acellist or I know how to develop
a piano player or a surgeon.
So if I'm I can be decisive inhow I actually build your
capacity, especially if you'reworking in like known knowns,
right?

(11:41):
So I think that can be really,really good because I don't it
it's not appropriate sometimesto collaborate with me if I have
no knowledge of what we'retrying to talk about.
I need you to be decisive andhelp scaffold my learning.
So in those cases, it can bereally good.
I think a decisive leader also,there's an air of of confidence

(12:02):
and there's an air of I havethe answer.
And again, that can becomforting at times for folks
that uh that decisiveindividual, here's what you need
to do.
So there's been times in mylife where I've had a coach and
they've said, here's what youneed to do, Scott.
And that felt comfortable.
So at times that decisivenesscan feel like a weight is off my

(12:27):
shoulders because I feel like Itrust their judgment and I go.
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I just had a coaching session right
before this, and I was meeting alead, a leader for the first
time in the military.
And at one point I said, that'swrong.
And he lit up, like, okay, I'mgonna get some good stuff here.
Yeah.
And you you brought somethingin there that's important.
When I do polarity maps, Ioften I want leaders to talk

(12:55):
talk about both the results andwhat they like about the feeling
of it.
So both outside in, inside out.
And you mentioned that there'sa sense of leadership presence.
I'm a strong leader, I'mdecisive.
Um, on the collaborative side,people often say, I feel like a
good person.
I feel like I'm you know kindand caring.
Yep.
Okay, so now we're gonna do thebottom right box, and this is

(13:19):
not uh what's bad about beingdecisive.
This is not the downside ofbeing decisive.
That's too limited.
This is if you look at this asan integrated whole,
collaborative and decisive.
If you're a leader whoover-privileges decisive over
collaborative, is biased towardbeing decisive over being

(13:44):
collaborative, what's theinadvertent downside of that?

Okay, so the downside, if I have a bias for
decisiveness, some potentialbiases or some potential
downsides of that bias might bethe wrong decision, the wrong
path forward.
I may miss important data thatagain, I think we all suffer
from what, 180 cognitive biases.

(14:13):
So my limited purview on thesituation may result in a
limited solution.
Another potential downside ofbeing biasing or privileging uh
decisiveness might be thatpeople don't feel like their
partners in the process, thatthey didn't have any voice, that

(14:36):
they're now along for a baddecision.
So those are some things thatcome to mind.
If I if I overly kind of biastowards that, I I think another
another downside is that thoseindividuals may not grow because
they're looking to me to be dador to make the decisions for
them.
And it may stall the growth ofsome of the people who are

(14:57):
working for me.

Yeah, very good.
Um, people feel shut down, theyfeel devalued, they stop giving
their best ideas.
Um it hurts innovation,creativity.
And how about the the the left?
I'm a leader, I love beingcollaborative, it feels so good.
Everyone, I like getting thisinput, safety and trust.

(15:20):
I lead these great openmeetings, but I'm biased toward
that over being decisive.
Yeah.
Um what's the inadvertentdownside of that one?

Some in the group might feel like we're wandering,
some in the group might feellike we're wasting time.
It can take a lot of time.
We might be setting up ascenario where not everyone is
gonna get their way, and sowe're gonna have a faction of
people check out regardlessbecause they're they didn't feel
their voice was heard or theirdecisions or their contributions

(15:55):
were acted upon.
So you're losing time.
You're you're in some casesmaybe watering down and try and
please everyone.
Now we have some watered downversion of what we're gonna try
and do, and it becomes clunkyand wonky at times.
And in in a spirit of nothurting anyone, uh I think um I

(16:23):
again, I think that leader canbe perceived as wishy-washy or
indecisive or not clear andconfident in their own skin.
And that can be a perception.

That was great.
And you and you end up notgetting much done.
You know, I work in systemswhere they form committees and
then they form committees aboutthe committees, and and and
people are just crying out,would someone just make a
decision?

I served on uh our uh at the my former university,
the the uh the governing groupof of academics, and there
literally was a committee aboutuh advisors.
So it was the advisorycommittee about advisors.

Right.

Oh, it just stalled.
It was so slow, it was sopainful, and just demoralizing
because nothing got done.

Yeah.
And so that moves into there'sbasically three ways that I
would process a polarity map sofar.
Okay.
Um the first, which tends to bethe biggest aha, is that
whatever you are biased toward,you lose the value of that when
you over-privilege it.
And so if you just if you ifyou were writing these down at

(17:52):
home, on the collaborative side,I want engagement.
Everyone's ideas, people feellike they're in it together.
But if I'm over-privilegingbeing collaborative over being
decisive, people are frustrated,they become disengaged.
Um, they give up trying.
Yep.
All that I wanted to be true.
I wanted this high-performingteam where we're dealing with

(18:14):
complexity well, and people arejust frustrated.
Yes.
On the decisive side, I wantedthat feeling of we're we're
getting stuff done, we're movingforward, we have a clear
direction.
Uh but actually now people areshut down.
We make bad decisions, we don'tinclude all the different
perspectives we could.
People feel devalued.

(18:35):
And instead of seeing me as astrong leader, they see me as
autocratic and dominating andsomebody that they'd like to
escape from.
Um so the first one is it whichtends to be the biggest aha for
leaders, if they are stronglyuh biased toward one or the
other, is seeing how theyactually lose what they want

(18:55):
without integrating the other.
Yes.
And that's why polarities are apair.
They we they need each other tobe effective.
Um the second thing that Ipoint out, whether it's an
individual or a team, is howmost of what's in the bottom
boxes are the same.
You end up on both sides withpeople being more disengaged and

(19:19):
poorer decisions being made.
Yes.
Yes.
So the bottom boxes are verysimilar.
Um the last part, which againone of your guests mentioned
before, is that if I'm stronglybiased toward being
collaborative, it's because I'mI'm mostly afraid of the
downside of the other pole.

(19:39):
So I really don't want to shutpeople down.
I really don't want to hurtcreativity, innovation.
So I overdo collaboration.
Or if I'm overly decisive, I'mso afraid of not getting stuff
done and just spinning wheelsand talking, talking, and not
getting not doing gettingresults, serving our
stakeholders, whatever thatmight be.

(20:01):
Um, so uh that's the diagonals.
Okay.
Now the bottom box we have todo a little more theoretically,
because this is part of whatchanged from my um polarity
thinking 2.0 2.0 to 3.0.
This used to be more of acognitive what's the downside of

(20:24):
not managing this polaritywell.
And that became really boringat some point because that was
always people are less engaged,we're getting less stuff done.
Yeah.
So this instead became theemotional intelligence part.
It's kind of like um well, oneof the ways of looking at this

(20:45):
is that when I teach coaching,uh one of the things I like to
say is that helping leaders seethe logical next step is the
easy part.
Helping them see why they don'ttake it is the art.

Yeah.

Um and so when I'm working with individual
leaders, but also with groups,we'll get to that too.
This is okay, you you'relooking at this map, leader.
Uh you it's obvious whycollaborative and decisive will
get you better results.
Why won't you do it anyway?
What's going to get in yourway?
Um it could get like immunityto change.

(21:21):
You know, like what's the corething that actually will stop me
from doing this, even though itmakes sense?
And now if we're working with aleader who's overly
collaborative, that'll often bethings like I'm really afraid of
hurting people's feelings.

Yep.

Or I'm desperate to be liked.

Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The competing commitments of,you know, um, I'm committed to
pleasing others, I'm committedto being liked, I'm committed to
uh, you know, not rufflingfeathers or maintaining harmony
at all costs, right?
Yeah, all those competingcommitments for sure.

Yeah, yeah.
Conflict scares me.
Anything like that.
If I'm a leader who'soverprivileged and being
decisive, often what comes upwhen I talk about this is I
would really feel awkward andweak if I start, if I let go of
my strong, powerful leaderstance and started asking
people, you know, hey Scott,what do you think about this?

(22:15):
What's your perspective?
Yeah.
And also, I'm really good atthe decisive stuff.
I feel awkward trying to becollaborative.
It's not my thing, you know,other people are good at it, I'm
not.
So again, I feel weak and Ilike feeling strong.
So the bottom box becomes theemotional intelligence piece.
What's going to be in your wayof actually getting this done?

(22:39):
And I found that works both forindividuals but also for teams.
I'll give an example soon.
And so it's the top box isalways homework for me.
Because what I'm saying to theleader is the top box is going
to be your uh leadership uhpurpose or like a value

(23:02):
statement.
What kind of leader would yoube uh if you were in this case
being really good at being bothcollaborative and decisive?
Yeah.
And so it has to be personal.
It could be a character, itcould be Yoda, you know, it um
it could be One word, it couldbe a short phrase, but I need it

(23:23):
to be meaningful to somebodybecause this is going to be the
wake-up call.
Whatever that top box is,you're going to think about that
right before each meeting.
Yeah.
Before each one-on-one, beforeyou lead your team.
And it'll temporarily get youmore balanced, just like, you

(23:44):
know, kind of a chiropracticadjustment in your mind.
And so the top box, I wantsomebody to really think about
that and have something thattouches their heart, that
touches their sense of the kindof leader they really want to
be.
So I don't want to give evenexamples of that.
I want somebody to come up withsomething.

Yeah.
And I like that touches theirheart piece, right?
Because if it's embodied likethat, I think there's a there's
just a difference there.

Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that's the basic way Iwould do a polarity map.

Yeah.

And now I'll I'll unpack some of what might
be different from some people.
Um one of the problems withpolarity maps is that there's
not a greater than sign on thesecond line.
There's a minus sign in the waythat they were first taught.
And uh deep bow to BarryJohnson, his contribution is

(24:42):
brilliant.
And so this is all building onthat.
But when people see a minus,they turn it into a pro and con
list.
And I was even part of a systemwhere thousands of people got a
training and polarities wereincluded, and it was what's good
and bad about each one ofthese.

(25:03):
And then it's notdevelopmentally sophisticated.
It doesn't help people think ata higher level of complexity.
And or even if somebody says,okay, what's good about being
collaborative?
What happens if I overdo it?
That's still not polarities.
Yeah.
That's closer.
It's only a polarity when youreally get that these are two

(25:27):
interconnected holes that needto be honored at the same time.
And so every time I did apolarity map when we were doing
the uh City of Edmonton'sleadership program, I'd say, I
know it says minus there, butit's not really minus.
It's actually what happens ifyou overprivilege one over the
other.
Yeah.
And then I still remember thisguy who was sitting at a table

(25:49):
in front of me who said, Whydon't you just use the greater
than sign?

Like, duh.

I love it when audience members give you
the obvious solution to your andso when you when you put the
greater than sign, it helpscorrect for that tendency to
make this into a pro and conlist.
Yeah.
And kind of to go along withthat, people will integrate a

(26:16):
tool at the level of complexitythey live at.
That's why when you do apolarity, people always revert
to versus.
Great.
I really like the one we didabout collaborative versus
decisive.
Because if you're looking atdevelopmental models, at an
achiever level, I look at thingsmore as complicated instead of
complex.

(26:36):
And so this becomes like, okay,I need to be ambidextrous.
So I think in this meeting I'llbe 70% collaborative, 30%
decisive.
And that's good.
But um later stage thinkingwould be no, it's it's a both
and.
And that's another bias ofmine.

(26:57):
Uh polarity thinking is bothand thinking, but not all both
and thinking is polaritythinking, and people can merge
those.
To be trait, I like my hot dogswith mustard and ketchup.
I'm a both and thinker.
The fact that you've said anddoesn't mean that you get the
sense of the interconnectinterconnected whole.
Okay.
It doesn't mean you get thesense that these two need each

(27:20):
other.
Because part of what I'velearned over time is that
everything goes better as apolarity.
There's not a single value youcan come up with that isn't
better understood as a polarity.
You know, like I've heard yousay, I mean, you think that
there's a lot of polarities outthere.
My my perspective, everythingneeds to be a polarity to be

(27:41):
thought about more effectively.
Even you know, someone couldsay, well, how about being
open-hearted?
Well, no.
Open heart and discerning mindis a great polarity.
There was a Buddhist teacherwho came up with the term idiot
compassion for people who had avery open heart and not a
discerning mind.
You make very bad decisions.

(28:04):
Yes.
Um, I think it was BeanusSharmer who said that
organizational values should bepolarities.
Um, one of our clients actuallytook us up on that.
Um, like the city of Edmontonhad a value of excellence.
That's just silly as amunicipality.
It's excellence and pragmatism.
It's this tension betweenwanting to do really good work

(28:27):
and wanting to not spend moneyor minimize money.
We had people who worked onroads who told us, I can fix
your potholes so that they'llnever need to be fixed again.
And your property tax will goup.
Are you you know, are youwilling to do that?
So a real honest value for amunicipality would be excellence

(28:48):
and pragmatism.
You're you're living in thetension between those two.
Yes, 100%.
Okay.
So so one issue was the minussign.
Another is that when I learnedpolarities, they talked about
this infinity loop.
And the examples you would givewould be breathe in, hold it a

(29:09):
little too longer.
Oh, now you have to blow outcarbon dioxide, breathe out,
nice.
Now you have to wait a little,now you wait a minute, now we
have to breathe in, and thatit's a nice infinity loop.
And that um, and polaritieswere presented that way.
You overdo one side, you thengo to the other side, and you
kind of you're balancing backand forth.

(29:30):
Now that's true for somepolarities.
Like if you're in arelationship, the polarity of my
needs and your needs, if youhave a partner, is one of those
polarities where, you know, Ireally want to meet my needs and
do what I want to do, but thenI start to feel a little too
selfish and my partner's gettingpissed off.
So I lean a little bit more onwhat they want, but then I feel

(29:54):
like I'm giving up too much andI get resentful.
There are some times when theinfinity loop works.
But then I started applyingthis in the real world and found
that from a lot of human beingsand for a lot of organizations,
they're stuck in one direction.
It is not a moving back andforth, it's not the seesaw,

(30:16):
action and reflection.
I have never seen anorganization that overdoes
reflection over action.

Uh, I don't know.
Like, um, what would it be?
I'm trying, I'm I'm just like,I love that little thought uh
thought.

Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe some kind of
fringe new age kind of, but oroperational and yeah, or like
operational and strategic.
Yeah.
All organizations tend to beoverly operational and they
don't step back enough.
We were talking about theEnneagram, and even though the
Enneagram, I'm an Enneagramthree, I've applied polarities

(30:57):
to the Enneagram.
So I have a whole system wherefor every every Enneagram type,
I talk about what polarities gowith that.
Oh wow.
My my type, one of thepolarities is over-privileging
doing over being.
If I looked at my whole lifeuntil maybe recently, did I ever
overprivilege being?
No chance.
Yes.
I was always overdoing thedoing.

(31:19):
I even went on sabbatical onetime and I wasn't working, and I
was busy all the time.
I just somehow, you know, Inever had a time to breathe
then.
It wasn't the work, it was me.
Yes.
So what I found was that with alot of people and with a lot of

(31:41):
organizations, it's a chronicoverprivileging.
It doesn't do this back andforth.
And that that was importantbecause when I first started
teaching it, I taught it aswell, you do a bit too much of
this, and you go to the otherside.
And to me, in the real world,that often is not what happens.

Well, yes, and and and to some of the you know,
online conversations we'vegotten into, you know, how does
the context kind of reinforcesome of that, right?
Quarterly earnings environment,and I'm the CEO.
Yes, now that is acting upon meand the organization and the
board, and that causes us tooverprivilege.

(32:20):
Wouldn't you agree?

Oh, totally.
And and there the polarity isshort-term and long-term.

Yeah.

And yeah, if I'm if everything is about this
next quarter, I will jettisonmy innovation team because it'll
make it look good, even if I'mhurting long-term capacity.
Yep.
Which is why privately heldcompanies often move very
differently than publiclytraded.
Because there's that they don'thave to answer to somebody for

(32:48):
the next quarter.
There's nobody putting thatpressure on them.
So that's true.
Even leaders who could thinkvery long term won't because of
that pressure.
It's a good example.
And I mentioned the bottom boxcould be true on a team level,
but this is also contextual,like you said.
I was doing work with anenvironmental group, and the key

(33:09):
polarity ended up being taskand people, which is one of the
very basic ones.
And they were overprivilegingtask over people.
And if there's some groupsomewhere that wants to give us

(33:30):
$10 million to do a project,even if we don't have the
people, we don't have thesystems, we don't have the
project managers, we're going tojust be running everyone too
hard, I'm scared to say no.
Yeah.
I feel like I'm a bad stewardof the environment if I say no.
So I'll keep saying yes.
Yep.
You know, that's the emotionalpiece to it.

(33:51):
I'd feel like a badenvironmental steward if I said
no.

Well, Joel, the the interesting thing here is, and
and I really appreciate that youbrought in the emotional
intelligence piece, because atleast how I facilitate immunity
to change.
You know, those competingcommitments, they've served us
really, really well in certainsituations.
I mean, they've gotten us towhere we are in some situations.
And we have these strongemotional ties to these things

(34:19):
that we're biasing oroverprivileging at times because
I'm an environmentalist.
This is my jam.
I have to take that money sothat we can make a difference.
And again, you start gettinginto this very um, we have
strong, strong emotionssurrounding those things that we
bias, bias or privilege.
At least that's my perspective.

(34:39):
It's just subconsciouslydriving our behavior.

Very much.
And that's why the top andbottom box changed for me on the
polarity maps, because it can'tjust be cognitive.
From from a cognitive level,it's no the the both ends
important here.
That question of what will getin your way of actually doing
it.
And there are some polaritiesthat are really useful for a lot

(35:03):
of leaders.
A lot of leaders are much morecomfortable smoothing out than
creating friction.
When they create friction, theyfeel like a bad person, or it
scares them when things getheated up.
They're very good at coolingthings down.

I I love that the okay, this is a cognitive
exercise.
This is also an emotionalexercise.
How much of this of this attimes is a neurochemical?
I I'm I'm searching for otherreasons why someone might
struggle to change, someonemight struggle to give less

(35:39):
privilege to a certain polarity.
What else is in what otherboundaries are in their way?
And I don't know how to betterverbalize it than that.
There's emotional reasons,there's cognitive reasons,
there's the this knowing-doinggap, right?
That so the things that aregetting in our way of actually
living into, are thereneurochemical reasons at times?

(36:02):
Have we behaved in a way for solong that shifting that neural
highway is deep work, deep work.
Unpack that makes sense of whatI just said.

Yeah, well, as as we all do, I'll take that
someplace where I have somethingto say.
If we think about Dan Siegel'swindow of tolerance, and I want
to stay responsive and notreactive.

(36:39):
I don't know if this isneurochemical, but I'm gonna
avoid anything that throws meout of my comfort zone.
And again, for some leaders,that's heating things up.
Other leaders have theopposite, cooling things down.
And now and then I'm broughtinto the Google School of
Leaders to do one-offs onpolarities to try to help a

(37:01):
leader find their best polarity.
And I was looking at some ofthose, and it was fascinating.
And this relates a bit to thatdialogue we got into on
LinkedIn.
There was one leader whoover-privileged being powerful
and empowering others.
Okay.
There was another leader whooverprivileged empowering others
over being powerful.

(37:22):
So the leader whoover-privileged being powerful
over empowering others, his corefear was not leaving a legacy,
not not being seen, not beingvalued.
But the leader whooverprivileged empowering over
being powerful was really caughtup in being nice and respectful

(37:46):
and kind and not standing out.
And so the reason why you whenwhen you do a polarity map, you
start with what somebody isbiased toward is to get at some
of that.
That's by the way, when we didthe polity map, I always do the
top left, top right, and then Ido the bottom right because

(38:06):
that's the one that comeseasiest to them.
So in the one that we did, if Iif I knew someone was one of
these very collaborative, youknow, let's form committees,
let's come back to this andlet's decide in three years.
I know that what's going tocome easy to them is what's
what's uncomfortable about beingdecisive for them.

(38:27):
And so then I go to the otherside.
Um I'm convinced that I couldwatch somebody doing a polarity
map in a language I didn'tunderstand, you know, Swahili.
And it would be really clearwhere the overprivileging was by
how quickly the words came foreach quadrant.
Wow.
And and I notice that a lotthat you know, if you're a

(38:49):
leader who's stronglycollaborative, and they say
what's good about beingdecisive, sometimes what'll come
out, what they'll say is what'snot good about it.
Or it'll just take them longer,or it's kind of begrudging.

And that's part of the challenge at times with
LinkedIn, where you have a lotof, you know, be kind at all
costs.
And it's it's these statementsthat don't be a manager, be a
leader.
And it's really interesting tokind of explore some of the
messaging that exists on thatplatform because it rarely takes

(39:24):
into account the complexity.
Now, if you take into accountthe complexity, that gets really
confusing for a whole swath ofpeople, right?
I mean, it's uh it's fuzzy andit's not it's not easily
digestible and consumable,right?
And that's why I love some ofyour work is that it's complex,
but it's digestible.

Yeah.
And I'll build on that.
I mentioned that someone willtake in polarities from their
current level of thinking.
Yeah.
And that's why polarities,that's why people say versus so
much.
And it's why people turn thisinto being ambidextrous, you
know, doing 80% here, 20% ofthat one, instead of living in
the tension of the two.

(40:08):
You know, like one of myfavorite polarities is
confidence and humility.

Yes.

And there's a there's a visceral internal
sense when we get that right.
It's not I'm gonna be 80%confident here.
It's like I'm both.
I'm I'm living in the in thetension of both.
I know, I know what I'm doing,and I don't.

I I still don't have a clear picture, Joel, of
of what that feels like.

Yeah, it's well, it's like let's take
collaborative and decisive, justbecause it's the one we did.
Yeah.
And then I want to get tosomething else too, but let's
stay with that one.
If I'm an effective leader, I'mcollaborating with a goal of
being decisive.
I'm actually doing both.
I'm leading this interaction,not just very good idea, Scott.

(40:57):
And what do you think?
Somebody else.
I'm leading it with an energytoward getting to a result.

Yes.

Yes.
Even if I'm someone who'stended to be decisive, but I
really get this polarity right,my way of being decisive is
collaborative.
Okay.
People feeling heard and we getshit done and we move forward.
Yes.
Um, I'm not doing one and thenthe other.
Um at the achiever level, if weuse that map, I look at it with

(41:29):
70%, 30%.
It's the next level.
I like catalysts for the nextlevel.
We could go into those mapsmore than individualists or
redefining.
That's the first level thatgets it as a visceral both and.
You know, I'm I'm kind of I maybe advocating something, but

(42:02):
I'm really curious what you'regonna say and and and how that
can shift my perspective.
I'm living in the both of that,you know, in the in the
self-transforming mind andKeegan's way.
We're authoring each other aswe talk.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna be inquirinquiring for a while and then
advocating.
We're just kind of doing bothand we're in a dance together

(42:23):
like that.
Okay.

Another sidebar.
Yes.
In Carl Kuhnert's, I believe itwas 87.
I I don't know if you've readthis, where he took Keegan's
work and applied it totransformational leadership.
One of the first papers to kindof really take that
perspective.
They said something, you know,you might have, I'm gonna go to

(42:44):
Keegan right now, but you mighthave like a stage four, uh a
self-authored individual orself-transforming individual,
might just sound, you know, andI the classic example of this is
I believe it was James uh JimJim Key, Jim Carrey.
Oh my gosh.
Not Jim Carrey.

(43:05):
He's a good Canadian, but I'mnot the um presidential
candidate in the United States.
Oh my gosh.
One of the candidates that wasgoing against George W.
Bush said, I, you know, I I seecomplexity.
And you know, so so Bush cameback and said, Well, you're
you're a flip-flopper.
And and that statementresonated with a large faction

(43:29):
of people.
Of course, it's amplified bythe media, et cetera, et cetera.
But it it's it's an interestingthing at times, we even in your
example of that person that youwere coaching before our call,
I need to maybe communicate downat an achiever, and that's how
I'm gonna get through to thisindividual.
That's where I'm gonna connect.

(43:49):
If I stay up here, well, itmight sound just foo-foo.
And we're we're not so I Ithink sometimes, at least in the
United States, you know, youhave you have uh Democrats who
struggle to communicate in avery and and Lincoln was known
as an individual who could takea very complex concept and

(44:12):
communicate it to a group offarmers, so it made perfect
sense.
So how do you think about that?
How do you think about how wecommunicate?
If I'm with an achiever, do Ineed to communicate in an
achiever language?
Is that a piece of thisconversation?

Yes, and yeah, the value of a polarity
map is that it's inherentlydevelopmentally energizing.
Um so I mean, certainly you'retalking to an achiever, you're
talking in terms of gettingresults and how to get the best
out of people.
Um, it's probably not till thenext level that people that

(44:48):
developing people for its ownsake seems like a value.
It's gonna be more again, theperson I was talking to right
before this, it was about howhis way of being decisive shuts
down people, which will hurt hisnext decisions.
Because that was his value.
Not in terms of uh the impacton humans for its own sake.

(45:08):
So so for sure, you need totalk to people uh in a way that
makes sense to them.
But um the piece I was gonnabring in before I forget it is
that and this goes back tofinding simplicity on the other
side of complexity.
I'll give an example.
There's a great 360 um from aguy named Rob Kaiser, who's a
friend and he's my psychometricguru.

(45:30):
Um it's a uh the assessment isa leadership versatility index
360, and it's all built onpolarities.
It starts out with one bigpolarity, forceful and enabling,
another operational andstrategic, and then it breaks it
down into subpolarities, andyou get all this really cool
stuff because polarities areactionable, right?
Yeah, if you're if you get a360 and you get 4.3 out of five

(45:52):
on communication, so what?
What do you do with it?
But if you get uh you talk toomuch, you listen too little, or
you talk, or you you know youyou or the others the way it's
immediately clear what you needto do.
But what I what I did at firstwhen people got this 360 was I
said, so I want you to lookthrough all this data and come

(46:13):
out with what's the one polaritythat will have the highest
leverage for you, that will havethe biggest impact.
And what I learned was that wastoo sophisticated for almost
anybody.
And that I needed to use mylevel of complexity to help them
see the one thing.
Yeah.

(46:34):
And then they would go, Oh,that's right.
And and I've done the samething where if I like if I do
360 interviews for a leader, Ifeed it all back in polarities.
You know, I was doing this witha uh CEO of a multi-billion
dollar company, and I said, Ihave 10 pages here, I have lots

(46:54):
of polarities, but there'sactually one for you that's your
main polarity.
And it's you're really good atengaging minds, you suck at
engaging hearts.
And if you can get if you cando that one better, almost
everything else falls intoplace.
And I do the same thing whensomeone has a battery of tests.

(47:14):
Yep.
I don't I don't ask them tolearn about polarities and
figure out the best one for themto do.
I suggest one and see if itfits.

I'm not top-down comedian, but that's a nice
balance of the collaborativeversus decisive.
Like here's what I'm seeing.
Does this resonate for you?
So being collaborative, but I'malso centering the conversation
to to move forward, right?
Exactly.
That whole meeting could be.
So, how do you feel about this?
And you know, I can tell youanything that I think, you know.

(47:45):
And yeah, I think at times,back to the 360 or back to some
of these other things, we wespend so much time giving people
just loads of feedback.
And I mean, that's like lookingat a basketball player and
saying, you need to do this,this, this, this, this, this,
and this, and these 14 otherthings.
Well, okay, where do I start?

(48:06):
I need you to guide me.
I need you to help me figureout where is gonna make the most
impact on my game.
And are you a good enough coachto help guide me in that
development and in that growth?
Right?

Totally.
Um, it reminds me of a friendwho took me out golfing.
I don't golf.
And it was like, you know, sowhen you do this, lower your
shoulder, bend your elbow.
You know, like I can't do allthat.
Can you can you ask me to doone thing?
That's like me in yoga.

You know, the biggest creep because they say
to do something, and my minddoesn't know what that means.
So then I end up looking allaround, and then people see me
looking, and I'm like, oh sorry,but I don't know what my body
should do right now.
But yes.

Yeah, I mean it's also why, and I think this
is I think executive coachesneed to function at a higher
developmental level than theirclients.
Otherwise, you can't reallyscaffold because and so I think
I don't know, that doesn't getsaid much, and that's not very
uh not very green.
Um it could be taken the wrongway, but I don't disagree.

(49:19):
But I think it's true.
I mean, I I I think that inorder to really challenge the
thinking and to scaffold aleader, we need to be thinking
at a at a more sophisticateddevelopmental level.

Yes, yeah, yes.
And we then also need to bereally clear.
What I see in leaderdevelopment is I have I have
former colleagues who as aprofessor, they would start off
with like complexity.
That's like flying a Boeing747.
Let's start with a cessnut,let's start with a piper.
Let's just kind of yes, that isa thing, and it's critical and

(49:54):
it's important.
It's very important.
And we should probably startwith active listening as a
foundational level of what weneed.
You know, we don't start with aheart, we start with a
gallbladder.
Joel, uh, as we begin to winddown our time, always a
pleasure.
We'll do it again.

(50:15):
And um anything that you'vebeen reading, streaming,
consuming that's caught yourattention lately that uh you
want listeners to know about?

Oh gosh, yeah, I mentioned this last
time, but it's so deeplymeaningful to me.
Daniel Brown's three volumes onCloudless Mind?

Is that the You're like me?
I couldn't remember.
John Carey's name a few monthsago.
I called him Jim Carrey.
I love it.

Yeah.
Um, Cloudless Mind, the threevolumes set from these impromptu
talks he gave for years.
Just profound.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Well, sir, I appreciate the conversation as
always.
Thank you very, very much.
Uh, something I respect aboutyou that I really, really enjoy
is that we have these tools andthey're important tools.
And then those tools interfacewith reality.
And at times some of thosetools need to be augmented or

(51:19):
shifted so that when interfacingwith that reality, uh, we can
get further faster, or it canhave deeper meaning with that
individual who's sitting infront of us.
And so I love that you havethat theoretical background and
and that wisdom.
And I love the fact that you'reexperimenting with how these
concepts and these toolsinterface with humans and that

(51:41):
experience that that space forme is fascinating.
I absolutely love it.
I really do.

Yeah.
And, you know, just a lastexample is that there are some
polarities, like consistency andflexibility, that if someone's
doing anything that's aboutregulations, they're giving you
know, they're giving buildingpermits, it's universally
applicable.
And if that polarity map is upon the wall in front of them,

(52:07):
they will temporarily think at ahigher level than they would on
their own.
That's scaffolding.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Okay, be well.
You too.

Okay, before we get to my summary of that episode,
I have a special guest, and thisis Dr.
Marcy Levy Shankman.
And we have been colleagues,co-authors, friends since
probably like 2006, back in theday, back in 06.
She is helping with ILA'sdialogue lab.
And so, Marcy, tell listeners alittle bit about this

(52:41):
opportunity and how they can getinvolved, how they can get
engaged.
New Orleans in January soundspretty good to me.
Tell us a little bit more.

Marcy Shankman (52:51):
So, Scott, thanks for asking me to talk a
little bit about the dialoguelab.
This is a really excitingexperience.
It's only offered every otheryear.
We're going to be in NewOrleans, as you said.
So, this three-day dialoguelab, which is going to be in New
Orleans, is focused on dialogueas a form of leadership.
So that means we're not goingto have panels, we're not going

(53:11):
to have workshops, we're notgoing to have presentations.
What we're going to have istrue deep engagement.
So, individuals will sponsorinquiry sessions, and those
individuals are the participantsthemselves.
And if you're interested inattending the dialogue lab, you
can come and participate as afull-fledged member of the
community.
This is a full-on, co-createdlearning community.

(53:35):
And if you want to bump up yourlevel of engagement, then you
can propose a topic to discuss.
And the proposal is simply aquestion.
And that's what we call ourinquiry sessions.
We're also going to takeadvantage of being in New
Orleans, which means we're goingto have this experience
grounded in music, food, andcivic life.
And we'll have opportunities toengage with members of the New

(53:58):
Orleans community.
So we think this is the righttime for this gathering.
Dialogue's needed in this timeof polarization, of complexity,
and of disconnection.
And the dialogue lab is uh anantidote of sorts to that.
We want people to come who areinterested in expressing their
curiosity, who have courage toask deep questions, practice

(54:21):
deep listening, express theirvulnerability.
Expertise is not a requirement,a growth mindset is.
So we're really excited toinvite your listeners to apply
to participate.
The gathering is three days, asI mentioned earlier, January
30th to February 1st of 2026.

(54:41):
And all who are interested inleadership are invited to
attend.

Awesome.
And I what I love in there isyour you mentioned the
opportunity to practice.
And we can practice listeningand practice engaging and
practice discernment and trulybeing present and mindful.
Absolutely love it.
So for listeners, there is allkinds of information in the show

(55:07):
notes.
So please feel free to checkthat out there.
And you know what, Marcy, thankyou so much for being a part of
the leadership team that'sputting this on.
And thanks so much for stoppingby today.
I hope it goes awesome.

Marcy Shankman (55:20):
Thanks, Scott.

Okay.
I don't know what to say that Ihaven't already said in these
last couple episodes.
Dr.
Joel, so thankful for you.
Thankful for your wisdom.
Thankful for the reality thatuh you're taking a lot of these
theories and seeing how theyinterface with human beings.
Loved that from our firstconversation, incoming humans.

(55:43):
So a lot of times some of thesethings make a lot of sense, and
then people make sense of them,and there's an opportunity for
us to adjust and tweak.
And Joel, I think, said, youknow, he's on 3.0 of how he's
thinking about polarities andthe power of that activity when
helping others see some of thedynamics at play.

(56:05):
Practical wisdom for me.
Don't just sit in a room andthink about it, design it, take
it out, try it out, see howpeople take it in, what makes
sense, tweak, learn.
And it's that process ofcontinual growth, continual
development, that iteration.
And then hopefully we arebetter preparing people to serve

(56:30):
in formal and informalleadership roles.
For me, that's the goal.
Everyone, as always, thanks forchecking in.
Take care.
Be well.

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