Thursday, November 13, 2008
Polarity Management
The universe (a dear friend, actually) pointed me in the direction of Polarity Management (www.polaritymanagement.com), which was developed by Barry Johnson, and is described in a book of the same name. Polarity Management is a way of looking at issues that we all face in life, at work, and at home in terms of balancing the polarities involved. For example, we all face the challenge of balancing work and pleasure, care for self and care for others, the need for privacy and the need for social time. Life works better when they can be balanced and managed than when you swing from one extreme to another. Simple concept, right? Now try applying it to your unruly teenager who wants total freedom from parental constraint. How do you help him/her find that balance between having freedom to do what s/he wants while maintaining responsibility to school, the family, and his/her extracurricular commitments? It doesn't have to boil down to "because I said so." You can actually determine what happens when you swing too far one way and then overcompensate by swinging too far the other way. And by actually discussing it with your teen, both your concerns and his/her concerns can be put on the table in a reasonable manner.
How does it work? Each pole of a polarity has an upside and a downside. You identify both for each pole and notice how you react when you get too much of a downside of a particular pole--you swing to the upside of the opposite pole. When you get too much of that upside, it flips to its downside starting the cycle to the upside of the opposite pole again. Notice how this happens in the political arena: when one party has been in power for a long time and has pushed its agenda too far, the tide turns and we elect them out of office and put the other party in. It just happened :) Fortunately, we just elected someone who indeed sees the necessity to balance the polarities.
This is about all I know so far, and it just scratches the surface. I hope to have a guest blogger share some more about this amazing methodology. Stay tuned!
How does it work? Each pole of a polarity has an upside and a downside. You identify both for each pole and notice how you react when you get too much of a downside of a particular pole--you swing to the upside of the opposite pole. When you get too much of that upside, it flips to its downside starting the cycle to the upside of the opposite pole again. Notice how this happens in the political arena: when one party has been in power for a long time and has pushed its agenda too far, the tide turns and we elect them out of office and put the other party in. It just happened :) Fortunately, we just elected someone who indeed sees the necessity to balance the polarities.
This is about all I know so far, and it just scratches the surface. I hope to have a guest blogger share some more about this amazing methodology. Stay tuned!
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