Why I deliberately lead people into ambivalence and encourage them to slow down meaning-making
One of the most counterintuitive things I do when preparing a major change announcement, a team away day, or the launch of a high-risk, uncertain project is I discourage people from reaching a decision too quickly.
Human beings are exceptionally quick to assign meaning to things. Within moments of hearing a piece of information, most of us have already begun providing answers to questions that nobody actually asked yet, and before we’ve properly understood the thing itself:
“I know exactly why this is happening.”
“I agree/disagree with this.”
“This is someone's pet project.”
“This won't affect me.”
“This is obviously the right thing to do.”
“This is going to create loads of work.”
“This fixes the wrong problem.”
“We've tried this before.”
“This is overdue."
"This is unnecessary."
Human beings are uncomfortable with uncertainty; people naturally want (quick) answers and (very quickly), people begin searching for a position.
Support it. Reject it. Vote on it. Commit to it. Defend it. Challenge it. Distance yourself from it. Decide whose side you're on.
We praise decisiveness, so we assume that forming a view quickly is a virtue but once people have chosen a side, they start defending it. Rather than trying to understand the issue, people start trying to win the argument as the discussion shifts from exploration to advocacy for their view.
When I facilitate discussions around significant change, I am often trying to put people in a place that many find uncomfortable: ambivalence.
Ambivalence is the smartest position.
Psychologists and change practitioners have long recognised ambivalence as a natural part of change. Research on motivational interviewing, for example, treats ambivalence not as resistance but as an expected stage in making sense of change. People frequently hold competing beliefs at the same time (another transformation practitioner I know describes this most eloquently as “managing polarities”) and need space to explore both sides before commitment becomes meaningful.
Compounding this is an obsession with “buy-in”, by which, most people essentially mean “agreement”, and we then treat agreement as evidence of understanding. I treat understanding as the objective. Agreement may follow, disagreement may follow, but both are more valuable when people arrive there through sense-making rather than speed.
Space must therefore be made to have ‘understanding conversations’ while people sort through all the information to arrive at understanding.
A new operating model may create efficiencies while initially introducing disruption, even slow-down.
A technology platform may solve current problems while creating new dependencies.
A transformation programme may create enormous opportunity while carrying significant risk.
All of those things can be true simultaneously. Ambivalence recognises complexity, that there are legitimate reasons both for and against something and that reality is more complex than a simple yes-or-no answer.
My own personal mantra for this is: “Embrace the and AND”.
When facilitating an away day or change workshop, I often aim to ask questions that deliberately keep people in the liminal space between agreement and disagreement, positive and negative - questions tha force two truths to exist at once:
What concerns would a supporter of this change have?
What benefits would a critic recognise?
What would have to not happen for this to succeed?
How could this be both the right decision and a bad experience?
What are we willing to sacrifice in order to achieve this?
Who might find things harder if this works exactly as planned?
What existing strength might this weaken?
Under what conditions could both advocates and critics be correct?
Notice that none of these questions ask people whether they support the idea?
When I stand in front of a team discussing a major change, I am looking people to leave saying: "I understand this better than I did this morning."
Understanding creates higher-quality decisions than persuasion. A commitment reached after understanding is usually stronger, more durable, and more adaptive than commitment secured through pressure, momentum, or haste. When people understand a situation deeply, they can disagree intelligently, support intelligently, or suggest alternatives intelligently.
Understanding is a journey in its own right. Not every conversation must end with a commitment, a decision, a position, or buy-in. Sometimes the most productive outcome is a room full of people who are thoughtfully ambivalent, asking better questions than they were asking an hour ago.
References & Further Reading
Argyris, C. (1990). Overcoming Organisational Defences.
Argyris explores how organisations often prevent genuine inquiry by moving too quickly into advocacy, anf how people rapidly form assumptions and then defend them.
Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow.
A classic. Supports the argument that humans instinctively reach rapid conclusions and rely on mental shortcuts, often before sufficient information is available.
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in Organisations.
Weick argues that organisations don't simply react to events, they construct meaning around them.
Isaacs, W. (1999). Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together.
A source for the idea that dialogue should be about collective understanding rather than persuasion.
Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. Harvard Business Press.
Contains a strong distinction between technical problems and adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges require learning and understanding before action.