Poge Colonel: You write “Born to Kill” on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What’s that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?…

Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.

Poge Colonel: The what?

Private Joker: The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.

Poge Colonel: Whose side are you on, son?

Private Joker: Our side, sir.

Full Metal Jacket

Management requires dichotomous thinking: holding two opposing ideas or branching paths in one’s head at a given time.

Each is a legitimate possibility.

They may not be equally weighted in terms of likelihood.

And you may desire for one to occur over another.

But each is a distinct possibility.

  • You’re hiring for an open position. Candidate $X is advancing nicely. You have high hopes for them. You’ve built rapport with them. You can visualize how they’ll benefit and complement the team. And yet, you can’t let up on interviewing other candidates, sourcing new ones, generating additional pipeline. You may even meet candidate $Y. $Y could be excellent too. Maybe better than $X…
  • You’ve come to recognize that $Z is not meeting expectations for their role. You need to start being more explicit both in your feedback to them about specific issues and generally about their overall performance. You simultaneously want $Z to raise their performance, to meet and exceed your expectations. You also need to be prepared that $Z may not be able to do so. $Z deserves an equitable chance to succeed. The team you manage also deserves to have contributions commensurate with folks’ positions…
  • Your company is preparing to IPO, to make an entrance into the public markets. The board is built out, the C-suite is filled, appropriate financial reporting is in place, the roadshow is ready. And yet an interesting potential acquirer is asking for a meeting. You think there may be a good fit and better together may be…

Responsible management requires holding both ideas in the mind’s eye simultaneously.

The muscle to build here is recognizing whether you are in a situation that requires considering two (or more) potential outcomes.

Is a single “good enough” solution ok?

Or is this the management equivalent of speculative execution in processors?

If the latter, then your actions shouldn’t lead to pruned possibilities too soon.

Choose wisely.