Both/and thinking: moving beyond either/or to solve hard problems

Executive overview

Most leaders default to either/or framing when facing tough decisions — it feels faster and reduces uncertainty. But this narrows options and locks teams into trench warfare over competing positions.

The core insight: the "right answer" is often not A or B, but a creative C that honours what matters in both.

Wendy Smith's both/and thinking framework, developed through 20+ years of research on strategic paradoxes, offers a structured path from either/or dilemmas to more integrative decisions. It starts with recognising that underlying any dilemma is a paradox — a tension that never fully resolves — and that navigating it well requires changing the question, separating the underlying values, and choosing dynamically over time rather than once.

Why we default to either/or

• Uncertainty triggers anxiety; a clear decision removes it — at least short-term
• Once a decision is made, consistency pressure makes us stick with it
• Each side "digs a trench," reinforcing its own view and dismissing the other
• The emotional stakes of our own dilemmas blind us to both/and options that are obvious to outside observers

Dilemma vs. paradox

• A dilemma is the surface choice — the forced decision that demands an answer (e.g., stay or go, innovate or sustain)
• A paradox is the underlying tension — oppositional, interdependent, and persistent
• Dilemmas recur because the paradox beneath them never disappears
• Recognising the paradox underneath prevents treating each dilemma as isolated

Changing the question

• The entry point to both/and thinking is reframing the question
• "Should I stay or go?" → "How can I stay and go?" — deliberately impossible, but opens new territory
• Psychologist Paul Watzlawick: "The problem is not the problem. The problem is the way we think about the problem."
• A reframed question surfaces what each option actually represents, rather than forcing a binary choice

Separating and connecting

• Separate first: identify what you genuinely value in each option
  • Staying: loyalty to team, finishing a project, valued relationships
  • Going: new adventure, better title, higher pay
• Connect second: ask how you can honour both sets of values simultaneously
• Possibilities that emerge from connecting: negotiate a delayed start date; bring key teammates; pitch the new role internally; move 80% while finishing one day a week for a transition period
• Skipping directly to yes/no forecloses this entire space of options

Moving up and down a level

• Moving up: identify a longer-term goal or overarching purpose that both options serve
  • At IBM, the best leaders kept reminding teams why today's operations and tomorrow's innovation were both necessary
  • Paul Polman at Unilever grounded competing demands in a single mission: "making sustainable living commonplace"
• Moving down: do a deeper dive into what each option actually contains — the basis of the separating step above
• Higher purpose makes competing demands feel coherent rather than contradictory

Choosing dynamically, not once

• The ideal "mule" — a perfect integrative win-win — is rare
• Real both/and looks like consistent inconsistency: making micro-shifts between options over time
• The tightrope walker metaphor: always moving forward, never fully balanced, constantly making small adjustments left and right without over-correcting
• IBM leaders alternated resource allocation between existing products and innovation — neither permanently, both recurrently
• "Making a choice" (one-time decision) vs. choosing (ongoing dynamic navigation across time)

Radical listening as a starting point

• In polarised teams, the first move is not problem-solving — it is listening
• Listening does not mean agreeing; it means honouring the other perspective enough to fully understand it
• The blind men and the elephant: each perceives one part and declares it the whole; shared description reveals the elephant
• Radical listening surfaces the bigger picture that no single point of view can see alone

Practical tactics for individuals

• Assume you will default to either/or — build in a prompt to catch it
• Invite someone without emotional attachment to the decision into the conversation; ask them explicitly to surface both/and options
• In a stuck pair or team, do a "pair and share": each person articulates the other's dilemma, then proposes both/and alternatives
• Reframe the question before attempting an answer — treat the initial framing as a draft, not the problem itself