The paradox mindset

A more recent study, published by Miron-Spektor and colleagues in 2017, has examined the benefits of paradoxical cognition in the real workplace of a large consumer-products manufacturer.

The research team suspected that the answer would depend on an employee’s abilities and attitudes, and so they first designed a questionnaire to measure the “paradox mindset”. The participants were first asked to rate statements about their willingness to embrace contradictions, such as:

• When I consider conflicting perspectives, I gain a better understanding of an issue
• I am comfortable working on tasks that contradict each other
• I feel uplifted when I realise that two opposites can be true

The participants were also asked to describe how often they experienced “resource scarcity” at work (the need to perform highly under limited time or financial resources). Their supervisors, meanwhile, had to rate their performance and innovation within the role.

Sure enough, the study found that the employee’s paradox mindset had a large influence on their ability to cope with the demands. For the people who scored highly, the challenge of dealing with limited resources was energising and inspiring, and their performance actually increased under the tension, so that they came up with new and better solutions to the problems within their role. Those without the paradox mindset, in contrast, tended to crumble, and struggled to maintain their performance when resources were scarce.

These discoveries may be especially important for leaders, with evidence that a manager’s paradox mindset influences the innovation of their whole team. Companies and institutions that embrace paradoxical strategies tend to outperform their competitors.

Studies of the Toyota Motor Corporation have found that certain paradoxes are rife in its corporate culture, including the dual goals of maintaining stability while also encouraging constant reform. (As the former chairperson Hiroshi Okuda put it, “Reform business when business is good.”) This has resulted in an extremely efficient, lean production system that others try to emulate. It is also consistently ranked as one of the most reliable brands, and has the highest revenues of any carmaker in the world. Apple, meanwhile, is well known for design innovation and quality, but few are aware of the extreme efficiency of its operations. These combined goals have enabled Apple to be the most valuable company in the world at a market capitalisation of nearly US$2tn (£1.54tn).

Creative sparks

How can we capitalise on this knowledge? One obvious step, inspired by Miron-Spektor’s early study, would be to simply note down any paradoxes you encounter – and to make a point of contemplating them before you set about solving problems. If you are stuck for ideas, you could look further into the paradoxes that inspired scientists like Einstein and Bohr. Greek philosophy is also full of paradoxical ideas that might get your creative juices flowing.

Your own job may already contain many contradictory goals that could inspire paradoxical cognition. In the past, you might have assumed that you need to sacrifice one for the other – but if you want to cultivate the paradox mindset, you might spend a bit more time considering the ways you can pursue them both, simultaneously. Rather than seeing the potential conflicts as something to avoid, you can begin to view the competing demands as an opportunity for growth and a source of motivation. (And if there aren’t any external pressures, you could create your own – asking, for instance, how you could increase the efficiency and accuracy of your performance on a particular task, if only for an exercise in paradoxical thinking.) There may be no immediate solution, but the very act of thinking about the possibility of reconciling those issues could still lubricate your mind for greater innovation elsewhere.

The prospect of deliberately embracing competing demands may sound arduous, but Chinese researchers have recently shown that people with this mindset also get greater satisfaction from their role. There is an enjoyment, apparently, in reconciling two opposing goals – provided you have the right mindset.

Boosting your innovation and success, while also having more fun at work? There’s a paradox that’s certainly worth embracing.

Loizos Heracleous is a Professor of Strategy at Warwick Business School and an Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Janus Strategy.

David Robson is the is author of The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise Your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions (Hodder & Stoughton/WW Norton).