A paradox is an avowal of contradictions making some sense; some of the subsequent statements[10]should throw some light on the meaning of the term “paradox”
In other words, paradoxes signify the management of contradictions, extremes and conflicts; these are situations we come across in our daily life.Paradoxes are statements or phrases which may appear to be self contradicting, but they contain grains of truths
According to Marriam Webster the expression ‘paradox’ means:
1.(a) A statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true
(b) A self-contradictory statement that at first seems true
(c )An argument that apparently derives self-contradictory conclusions by valid deduction from acceptable premisses
2.One (such as a person, situation, or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases
The Ancient Greeks combined the prefix para- ("beyond" or "outside of") with the verb dokein ("to think"), forming paradoxos, an adjective meaning "contrary to expectation." Latin speakers picked up the word and used it to make their noun paradoxum, which English speakers borrowed at some stage to create the word paradox” [5]
“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love” – Mother Teresa
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite” – Nelson Mandela
“Although we may come from vastly different stories and very different walks of life, we are one people who possess common values and common ideals; who celebrate individual excellence but also share a recognition that together, we can accomplish great and wonderful things we can’t accomplish alone.” Barack Obama
“But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy.” George Elliot
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill
“Business opportunities are like buses, there is always another one coming” Richard Branson
In a web journal dt May 26, 2010 creators Ralph Jacobson and Alfred Marcus [7] says that the CEO’s most prominent challenge is supervising advantageous competitive principles with the issues like (1) Focus on the brief or long term? (2) Invest in unused trade activities or boost benefit from existing businesses? (3) Centralize operations or decentralize them? (4) Hold people responsible for comes about or teams? Paradoxes are not implied to be illuminated; but they ought to be monitored. That's the most noteworthy challenge of the management
In his Book “ Big Winners and Big Losers” , Professor Marcus [1] discovered that managing paradoxes are critical to the success. When CEOs are assisted to weave an endearing tactic, future victors would be created.
Managing the built-in tension of achieving short term profitability and sustaining long-term competitive advantage requires balancing the strain between agility [8] and openness to vary on the one hand, and to be focusedabout the discipline of execution on the opposite . Long-term success requires the exploration for new brand whopping markets, products and services and at an equivalent time, exploitation of existing products, services and other capabilities.
The paradoxes affect organizations at crucial levels namely strategy, structure, leader behaviour, functional orientation, and personal.
The design paradoxminefield [4] is designed to help the management to understand most critical organization paradoxes and identifying unbalanced paradoxes requiring immediate leadership attention
The purpose of keyfactors to be considered from organization perspectives relate to determining the organization’s, department’s, function’s, or division’smost critical paradoxes. In this context the concerned methods include gathering of appropriate group together, explaining the concept of paradox with examples, drawing a circle with lines, writing divisions on either and of the line, gaining group consensus on where we are on each of the paradoxes, selecting one or two paradoxes to work on and using the division map and the balance paradox table to develop a strategy to understand the identified paradoxes
Understanding the paradoxes will enhance the positivity in the organization, thus higher growth path will be attained.
We talk about Giffen’s Paradox[2] in economics, where the 19th Century British Economist, Sir robertGiffen, observed that demand for breads fell, when the price of the bread fell. The economist attributed this to the effect of ‘substitution’
Managing the paradoxes depends on the handling of a disruptive environment due to changes brought about by innovations, digital transformation, and the need of agile decision making.
According to a study on “Management Paradoxes: A relational view”[3] conducted by Stewart Re Clegg, JoaVieria da Cunha and Miguel Pina e conducted by Stewart Re Clegg, JoaVieria da Cunha and Miguel Pina e Cunah in “Human Relations” published by Sage Publications (2002), simultaneous presence of paradoxes is a part of everyday practice of management leading to shaping of synthesis.
Paradoxes are dilemmas defying common sense and business acumen
They offer complexities and inabilities to address and understand; are they not divergences confused as problems? They exhibit in dualities relating to leadership (control vs empowerment), teamwork (tasks vs relationships), strategy (competition vs collaboration), structure (centralized vs decentralized), and withing ourselves (work vs home)
| Tasks | Relationships |
| Positive aspect of the left side of the division | Positive aspect of the right side of the division |
| Work is delivered on time | Relationships support effective collaboration |
| Team members are proud of their accomplishments | Members support each other with extra effort |
| Team members are accountable for Their work | The team is more resilient and agile |
| One end of _____________________________________________________ One end of the The division division |
|
| Week relationships among team Members | Deadlines are missed |
| No team cohesion | Team members lose motivations |
| Members fail to support each other | Team members lack accountability |
| Negative aspects of the left side of the division | Negative aspects of right side of the division |
We need to swallow our pride to move on for the betterment of society forgetting contradictions, conflicts and confrontations. This should provide the key to managing paradoxes. When we have a better knowledge of tasksand relationships, the scenario of paradox will get diluted leading to the attainment of a level of manageability.
References:
[1] “Big winners and Big Losers: The 4 secrets of Long-Term Business Success and Failure” (2005) By Alfred A Marcus , Publisher(s): Pearson ISBN: 9780131451322
[2] “Robert Giffen and Giffen Paradox” (1989) By Roger S Mason – Publishers Philips Allan
[3] “Management Paradoxes: A Relational View” (2002) By Stewart R. Clegg, João Vieira da Cunha, Miguel Pina e Cunha – “Human relations” – SAGE PUBLICATIONS
[4] “Getting unstuck” (2014), Ralph Jacobson, CRC Press Taylor & Francis Group: ISBN No-13:978-1-4665-9643-6
[5] http://www.merriam.webster.com/dictionary/paradox
[6] https://www.cci.org/articles/ledding-effectively-articles/manage-paraddox-for-better-performance/
[7] https://chiefexecutive.net/the-ceos-greaest-challenge-managing-paradoxes-for-sustained-competitive-advantage/
[8] https://davidreyero.com/en/mythemes/business/10-paradoxes-of-current-business-management
[9] https://blog.12min.com/big-winners-and-big-losers-summary
[10] https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-paradox.html
Dr.Sreedharan Menon
Professor,
DR V N BRIMS, Thane
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