Polarity Thinking and the PACT™

Does your organization experience problems that just won’t go away?

Should we pay attention to our mission—or to our profits?  Should we focus on long term strategy—or short term results?   Should we honor tradition—or embrace innovation?  So many organizations see these questions as problems to solve.  So they make choices, they vacillate back and forth; they waste resources and exhaust their people.

Polarity Thinking tells us that values come in pairs and are usually not problems to solve but polarities to manage.  As breathing in leads to breathing out and back again, these poles define a natural energy flow that, when managed well, creates the future the organization wants; and, when managed poorly, creates the future the organization fears the most.

Discovered by Barry Johnson, Polarity Thinking addresses the “wicked problems” that won’t go away.  It can be applied as a graphic tool on a napkin, a strategic planning methodology, an approach to real time change, and a brand new quantitative survey tool called the PACT™ (Polarity Approach for Continuity and Change) for real-time insights into engagement, alignment, and more.

You will have the chance to physically explore the quadrants of a Polarity Map, hear stories about applications, discover and discuss polarities that are relevant to your own work, and experience the PACT™.  By the end of the evening, you’ll see pairs and polarities you never noticed before and think twice before saying “either-or.”

Neesa Sweet is the former Director of Learning and Development for the Sun-Times and has consulted for dozens of companies and not-for-profits in OD, coaching, communications and change.  She is a certified PACT Consultant, a certified Neuroleadership Coach and the principal consultant at her company, the Braided River Group.