Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis, "Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems" (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022)
Date: December 5, 2025
Host: Alfred Marcus
Guest: Wendy K. Smith

Episode Overview

This episode explores the core themes of Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis' book, Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. Through in-depth dialogue, the host and guest examine how leaders and organizations can address "paradoxical tensions"—the persistent trade-offs such as profit vs. purpose, exploration vs. exploitation, and global scale vs. local responsiveness. Smith shares practical strategies, historical and contemporary business cases, and research insights. The conversation ultimately advocates for a mindset shift from either/or to both/and, demonstrating that embracing tensions can fuel innovation, resilience, and adaptability.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal & Intellectual Origins of Paradox Theory

• Wendy K. Smith’s Journey
  • Smith’s motivation stems from her own career uncertainties between academia and "real-world" leadership, and observations of major business failures like Enron and WorldCom ([02:36]).
  • She questions the classic “bottom line only” view of business and seeks to understand how leaders can hold space for both profit and greater purpose.
  • Quote:

    “For social scientists, we often say that research is me-search...I needed to understand my own journey through tensions.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [02:36]

2. Paradox vs. Trade-offs: Defining the Difference

• Trade-off Thinking: You must choose between conflicting values or objectives.
• Paradox Thinking: Instead, recognize the persistent, interdependent nature of certain conflicts and find ways to hold both opposing demands simultaneously ([04:19]).
  • Quote:

    “Paradox theory...says when things are in opposition...that conflict, that opposition is only one dimension, that there is also interdependence.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [04:59]

3. The Pull of Either/Or Thinking (and Why It’s Limiting)

• Psychological Roots: Humans are drawn to certainty, especially under pressure or uncertainty. Either/or provides clear, if simplified, answers ([06:06]).
• Innovation Inhibitor: Either/or thinking constrains creativity and limits adaptive capacity ([05:46]).
  • Quote:

    “We don’t like uncertainty...we want a clear answer that makes sense for us. Paradox invites us to live with more complexity.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [06:06]

4. Hedging vs. Both/And: Experimentation as Ongoing Balance

• Hedging & Portfolio Management: Often mistaken for paradoxical thinking, but usually aimed at eventually making a choice ([07:20]).
• Paradox Approach: Encourages leaders to continually and actively maintain a dynamic balance between oppositional forces, not just as a phase but as a continual process ([07:37], [08:54]).
  • Example: IBM invested in both existing products and innovations not as a “hedge” before switching, but as an ongoing strategic tension.

5. Practical Tools for Leaders Embracing Paradox

5.1 Long-Term Commitment to Overarching Goals

• Maintain a superordinate, purposeful vision that encompasses both sides of a tension ([09:08]).

5.2 Differentiation Before Integration (Separate to Connect)

• Understand and resource each pole (e.g., the existing business and innovation) distinctly, before seeking connections ([23:05]).

5.3 Tightrope Walking

• Leaders must make micro-adjustments over time—sometimes leaning towards one pole, sometimes the other—without overcorrecting. This ongoing “tightrope walk” produces innovation and prevents overcommitment to stability or novelty ([09:08], [31:34], [53:00]).
  • Quote:

    “They’re never fully balanced, they’re always balancing...constantly tweaking, making these micro tweaks...”
    — Wendy K. Smith [09:08]

6. Business Case Analyses: IBM, Unilever, LEGO

• IBM: Successfully balanced old and new for a time, but “lost it” as paradigms shifted again (cloud to AI). Smith notes the importance of recognizing time horizons in strategy ([13:09]).
• LEGO: Initially clung to tradition, resisted change, then radically overcorrected, ultimately finding success through explicit paradox management. LEGO codifies their dilemmas (the “11 paradoxes”) ([24:54], [28:00]).
  • Quote:

    “If you go to LEGO, they have up on their wall the 11 paradoxes of LEGO. They just put it right out there.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [24:54]

• Unilever: Considered for their global vs. local and purpose vs. profit tensions under Paul Pullman ([17:32], [24:54]).

7. Organizational Scale, Structure, and Paradox

• Large Firms: Greater complexity due to size, global pressures, and diverse stakeholders make paradox management both more challenging and necessary ([16:19], [17:32]).
  • Roger Martin’s concept of “intimate monumentality” is cited: balancing large-scale coherence with local autonomy and connection ([17:32]).
• Universal vs. Particular: Companies like Unilever examine which things should be global “guardrails” and which should be tailored locally ([17:32]).

8. Paradox at All Levels

• Paradox is not limited to big corporations; it appears in individuals, teams, organizations, and even communities ([21:29], [22:09]).
  • Example: Shorefast (Newfoundland social enterprise) balancing tradition and modernization ([22:09]).

9. Lessons from Organizational Conflict

• Destructive vs. Constructive Conflict: Conflict can surface creative tension, but only in psychologically safe environments where all perspectives can be voiced (Amy Edmondson’s work cited) ([29:42], [30:01]).
• Polarization: When organizations get “stuck” on one pole, swing wildly between extremes, or descend into trench warfare, outcomes suffer ([28:00]).

10. The Emotional Side of Paradox (A, B, C, D Framework)

• Assumptions (A): Mindset shifts are key.
• Boundaries (B): Structures, rules, scaffolds.
• Comfort (C): Leaders must get comfortable with discomfort and ambiguity ([34:40]).
• Dynamics (D): Ongoing change and emergence must be enabled.
  • Quote:

    “People who can hold these paradoxes...find comfort in the discomfort, which means it’s uncomfortable...but we can move forward.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [34:40]

11. Education and Academia as a Paradox (Business Schools)

• Universities, especially business schools, are themselves stuck in the tension between tradition and innovation, often defaulting to exploitation ([37:46], [38:18]).
  • Smith advocates for positive deviations and greater focus on teaching students to engage respectfully with conflicting perspectives ([38:18], [39:56]).
  • Quote:

    “A piece that we have missed...is helping our students be in conversation with other people that...they disagree with in terms of values.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [39:31]

12. Societal Value and the Limits of Paradox Management

• Paradox thinking is essential not just for business innovation, but to heal broader societal divides ([41:29]).
  • Quote:

    “Maybe there is a better place we can get by...acknowledging that if we bring together our different values, our different perspectives, we can come to somewhere better and more creative. That’s the heart of both/and.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [41:29]

• Paradoxes never fully “resolve”—they must be continually managed, like “pressing a balloon” where tension surfaces elsewhere, echoing the limitations of the dialectic model ([42:38], [43:40], [44:08]).

13. Investment, Uncertainty, and Dynamic Adaptation

• Paradox thinking mandates long-term views, dynamic adjustment, and resistance to short-termism and stabilism ([46:00]).
  • Quote:

    “...Short-termism, it’s stabilism, it’s myopia.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [46:00]

14. The Role of AI in Paradox Management

• AI can help illuminate both/and solutions by suggesting creative alternatives and challenging entrenched individual thinking ([48:07], [50:16]).
  • Smith finds that people are more receptive to both/and when suggestions come from “the outside”—including possibly from AI ([50:16]).
  • Quote:

    “If we ask AI, here’s the tension I have, need a couple of both/and possibilities”
    — Wendy K. Smith [50:16]

15. Tightrope Walking, Game Theory, and the “Mule”

• Paradox management is like iterative game theory—decisions accrue over time, and balance must be continually recalibrated ([53:00]).
  • The rare “win-win” (the “mule”) is possible but most solutions are micro trade-offs—a continuous balancing act ([53:00], [54:10]).
  • Quote:

    “That’s the tightrope metaphor...you are making decisions in service of over time holding both.”
    — Wendy K. Smith [54:10]

16. What’s Next? Future Research and Practice Questions

• Smith is focused on two questions:
  1. What does it take for people to be more expansive, holding both/and thinking amid uncertainty?
  2. How can we better honor differences as possibilities for connection, not division? ([54:55])
  • Quote:

    “In a world that has so much complexity, it’s leading us to be more and more narrow...How do we hold that expansion?”
    — Wendy K. Smith [54:55]

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Paradox theory...says when things are in opposition...that conflict, that opposition is only one dimension, that there is also interdependence.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [04:59]

• “We don’t like uncertainty...we want a clear answer that makes sense for us. Paradox invites us to live with more complexity.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [06:06]

• “They’re never fully balanced, they’re always balancing...constantly tweaking, making these micro tweaks...”
  — Wendy K. Smith [09:08]

• “If you go to LEGO, they have up on their wall the 11 paradoxes of LEGO. They just put it right out there.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [24:54]

• “People who can hold these paradoxes...find comfort in the discomfort, which means it’s uncomfortable...but we can move forward.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [34:40]

• “A piece that we have missed...is helping our students be in conversation with other people that...they disagree with in terms of values.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [39:31]

• “Maybe there is a better place we can get by...acknowledging that if we bring together our different values...we can come to somewhere better and more creative. That’s the heart of both/and.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [41:29]

• “If we ask AI, here’s the tension I have, need a couple of both/and possibilities.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [50:16]

• “That’s the tightrope metaphor...you are making decisions in service of over time holding both.”
  — Wendy K. Smith [54:10]

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic/Insight | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:36 | Smith’s personal motivation and the origins of her paradox research | | 04:19-04:59| Defining paradox vs. trade-offs in organizations | | 06:06 | Why managers gravitate towards either/or thinking; limits on innovation | | 07:37 | Hedging, experimentation, and the difference with paradox theory | | 09:08 | Practical application: “tightrope walking,” IBM’s balancing act | | 13:09 | Evaluating IBM’s and other firms' trajectories; the role of time horizons | | 16:19-17:32| Political and structural pressures on large organizations (Unilever, Novo Nordisk, etc.)| | 21:29-22:09| Paradox at individual, team, organizational, societal, and community levels | | 23:05 | “Separate to connect” and its application in negotiation, leadership, and culture | | 24:54 | LEGO’s explicit paradox management, “the 11 paradoxes” | | 28:00 | The “vicious cycle” of entrenchment and overcorrection in organizational conflict | | 29:42-30:49| Constructive vs. destructive conflict; psychological safety | | 34:40 | “Comfort in discomfort,” A-B-C-D organizational framework | | 38:18-39:31| Academia’s own struggle with exploitation/exploration; need to teach deep dialogue | | 41:29 | Both/and as a societal skill, not just for business | | 42:38-44:08| Limits of dialectics and the permanence of paradox | | 46:00 | Strategic decision-making, investment under uncertainty, and the pitfalls of short-termism | | 48:07-50:16| The role of AI as an aid to both/and imagination and expanding alternative solutions | | 53:00-54:10| Tightrope walking, win-win scenarios (“the mule”), long-term balancing | | 54:55 | Smith's ongoing research on expansion, possibility, and connection |

Conclusion

Smith and Lewis’s “both/and thinking” offers not just a leadership tactic but a worldview: one that recognizes complexity, welcomes organizational and societal tensions, and sees the embrace of paradox as the engine behind sustainable success and creative adaptation. The discussion underscores the practical tools for organizations, the psychological and emotional work for individuals, and the societal imperative for more nuanced, flexible, and dialogical approaches.

Smith’s final encouragement:

“There’s so much more. I would say people should read the book.” ([56:10])

For listeners interested in practical strategy, organizational renewal, and future-ready leadership, this episode is a masterclass in seeing, holding, and flourishing within the paradoxes that define our world.