"Fifty-fifty"

There are some discussions you just can’t resolve. Should production make what sales sells, or should sales sell what production can make? Does the business take the lead and does staff just have to deliver, or does staff capacity determine how the line divides this up among themselves? Neither extreme is ever true. There’s always a “no, unless” or “yes, provided that.” The truth in these kinds of chicken-and-egg relationships lies somewhere in the gray area, presumably around the middle. So endless debates quickly become a waste of time.

One more thing: should the board report only what the regulator wants, or should the regulator give the board complete freedom? Both are true and false. You’re looking for a partnership that builds trust through practical experience—a two-way street. A debate based on principles alone won’t get you very far.

We’re familiar with these kinds of paradoxes from other contexts as well. For example, there’s the age-old debate over whether nature or nurture determines an individual’s development. The competition between scientific research supporting both positions is fierce. Does it help us move forward? To ask the question is to answer it.

Of course, we must continue to investigate this kind of “apparent contradiction,” if only to discover the emergence of a third dimension. But above all, let’s accept that both extremes point to the middle ground. If we simply agree that both are 50% correct^(*1), then we arrive at another very important principle: togetherness. It’s not about who is more right; it’s about what we achieve together.

I urgently advocate replacing the often endless “debate over principles” with a more practical approach based on collaboration, especially in these times when crisis and uncertainty have become the New Normal. Resilience is a Core Competency; adaptability is the norm. Listening carefully with genuine interest and respect for one another offers a better “way forward” in this increasingly complex world—something that does involve some feeling and emotion.

However, in keeping with our cultural tradition, we approach many issues rationally first and foremost. Our rationality has brought us a great deal of protection, health, and safety—and with that, continuity, far beyond the principle of “survival of the fittest.” And yet, when it comes to our successes—such as investments, acquisitions, or hiring candidates—we actually pride ourselves on things like our “fingerspitzengefühl.” So intuition is there, but it only counts in hindsight. We’ve become a bit like our culture. Even our educational system is primarily knowledge-oriented and focused on avoiding mistakes. Without mistakes, however, you can’t come up with new solutions. And those are exactly what we need right now.

So, are we going to solve our crisis rationally or emotionally? Let’s put an end to this so-called dilemma right away and agree on a 50-50 split. Since they are complementary, reason and emotion should go hand in hand. In that case, we can certainly give some weight to emotion—feelings are also valid arguments. But let’s at least set aside the debates over principles more often and settle on fifty-fifty. It forces us to work together in everyone’s best interest.

^(*1) As early as 1951, Calvin Hall suggested that the dichotomy between nature and nurture was unhelpful, a view that was tentatively adopted by many anthropologists and other scientists in the decades that followed.