“The last two survivors. This is what she made us“ – Raoul Silva’s “Last Two Rats” monologue, Skyfall (2012)
As a kid, I really enjoyed Bond movies. The chilling Bond title songs. The exotic destinations. The thrilling action scenes. But what really entranced me were the villains. As I added more Bond movies to my mental archive (starting with Pierce Brosnan and moving to Daniel Craig), I noticed the villains got more interesting. The more classic villains were polar opposites of Bond: take Elliot Carver (played by Jonathan Pryce), the media mogul maniac in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies. Carver was an intellectual, devoid of national loyalty, lacking in care for Bond’s love interest, Teri Hatcher. The dark villain was held in stark contrast to the white knight of James Bond. Fast forward to my favorite Bond villain, played by Javier Bardem in the 2012 film Skyfall, Raoul Silva. Silva was a fellow former MI6 agent, a marksman, a man questioning what it means to be loyal to country. The polarity of the hero vs. the villain, the dark vs. the light, the good vs. the bad, is more nuanced with Silva’s character. Which allowed the audience to ask deeper questions about what makes a villain so different from a hero. If he was once a loyal spy, like Bond, might Bond be capable of villainous acts? Might you be?
Polarities are everywhere in storytelling. Whether it’s a protagonist vs. the villain in Hollywood movies. the Inferno of hell vs. the Paradiso of heaven in Dante’s Divine Comedy, or even the “before & after” appeal of a makeover or training scene. The subtext of the messaging we receive is that a character or setting is moving from one polar axis to the other. If she was a saint, now she is a sinner. If he was in a dark place, now he’s seen the light. It’s no wonder we’re so eager to cling to polar extremes; there is a comfort in distance from that which we fear.
Stories are not the only place polarities pull us in extremes. As leaders, we are constantly navigating polar framings. Should we set our goals top down, or bottoms up? Should we change our strategy or celebrate continuity? Should I provide an empathetic shoulder for my team member, or tough accountability? How might we innovate faster, and not slow down and stagnate? By framing a choice in contrast to an “other”, we achieve the same comfort a writer imparts on the audience with a Bond villain. One is dark, and one is light.
But just as with the most interesting Bond villains, the most complex topics are not as straightforward as “north” vs. “south”. The most interesting questions lie in navigating the distance across the poles, not just between them. In his 2014 book, Polarity Management, Barry Johnson helps us plot a Polarity Map, to help navigate questions we pose to ourselves and others, as leaders. Here’s an example, you might be navigating right now as an organization:
Take the polarity map for using AI, above. If you were the leader in charge of making this decision, how would you approach it? How might you unlock the values you identify in both scenarios (Use AI and Don’t Use AI), without taking on the fears? Might there be a world where you enable more control and flexibility for agents AND higher productivity?
Let’s look at another, more individual experience you might face as a leader. The experience of asking whether or not to stay in your current role:
In this example, notice how easy it is to “Inferno” and “Paradiso” both options. When a decision is personal and emotional (which this scenario certainly is for most of us, as we often connect our identity with our jobs), it’s so tempting to think in polar extremes. What if you were able to deliver on the values of a fulfilling and rich career in a different way? What if you could stay in your job and expand your network? Or address a need for reliable income, in addition to spending more time with family? When you start to break down the goal into how you might achieve the values vs. decide between 2 polar extremes, the directions you might take expand.
Note that polarity exploration is not an excuse to delay decision-making. Nor is it intended to infer that every choice will have no costs. Rather, they can be used to ask yourself what are you really solving for? And might there be more than 2 poles to solve for my goals?
What polarity are you struggling with right now? How might a polarity map help you? Download your free polarity map from Anbara. And if you need. a soundtrack to listen to as you explore, it’s hard to go wrong with a Bond compilation :).