M.023 Flip it: Productive contradictions in strategy

How philosophy can help us find more creative strategies

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There are many ways to come up with creative ideas of strategic relevance, but the perhaps most powerful one is to challenge established assumptions. Do something that goes counter to established practice and wisdom.

When Jobs and Wozniak built the first personal computer they challenged the established wisdom that computers were big expensive machinery for companies. When Warby Parker started selling prescription glasses as a fashion product and not as a medical-aid, they did the same.

While the appeal of such creative and new to the world strategies are easy to understand in retrospect, it’s way harder to come up with them in the first place. To dream up new and potentially valuable strategies that sees the world differently from everyone else. How can we do that?

One answer: Look to philosophy.

This may sound like a contradiction. And it is. Which you will soon see is part of the point.

Productive contradictions

Ever since the Old Greeks, philosophers have seen contradictions as a tool for progress and change. And the fundamental idea is simple.

Contradictory viewpoints or observations create tension that invites us to think about why the tension exists, and what (if anything) that can be done to solve it. And even if we don’t solve the tension, we might learn something new from trying.

This way of thinking is part of the dialectical process in philosophy. Its most famous contributor is the German philosopher Hegel, and the core logic is often summarized (and simplified) into the three main steps of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Thesis represents the current way of thinking. For example, to retrofit the case of Jobs and Wozniak, the thesis most agreed to in the early 1970s was that “computers are large expensive machines for companies”.

The antithesis, then, is a contrasting or contradicting state of the thesis. To continue the Apple-example, a contradictory antithesis-statement could be that “computers are affordable machines for everyone”.

Finally, the synthesis represents the solution or resolution to the tension between the contradictory statements of the thesis and antithesis. For Jobs and Wozniak this synthesis was to develop the first Apple computer, a cheap machine with features and functionality that individuals valued while skipping the expensive ones that only companies cared about.

Together, these three steps represents a process of ongoing change. The synthesis becomes the new thesis, with its own contradicting antitheses, that spurs new syntheses. And so the process of change continues.

Dialectical strategy

While Hegel & Co embraced contradictions as an engine of change, strategy tends to see it differently.

In strategy, contradictions are usually seen as the the incoherent choices in a strategy, the market offerings without any obvious demand, or the bad trade-offs between incompatible activities. They are something we should avoid. By making clear coherent choices, by asking customers what they want, and by focusing our strategies.

If the purpose is to make more logically coherent strategies, it makes perfect sense to avoid contradictions. If the purpose is to come up with creative ones, it doesn’t.

The most innovative strategies don’t emerge from streamlining existing strategies or focusing choices with regards to activities. They arise from entrepreneurs and strategists finding creative ways to make seemingly incompatible things work together. From people using the tensions of contradictions as ammunition to find new and innovative solutions.

This link between dialectical philosophy and strategy is seldom made explicit (one exception here), but it is there if we look closer. Even if it’s not explicitly labelled as dialectic in our books or teachings.

Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation is the prime example. The established companies are the thesis. The smaller, less resourceful companies with objectively worse but different solutions are the antithesis. And the process of disruptive innovation itself, where the smaller companies just need to be good enough on core features and have something else that customers value, is the synthesis.

We find the same logic in theory-based strategy (discussed in this and this earlier post). The idea here is that the most valuable strategies cannot be obvious, because then everyone would have seen them. Great strategies arise from entrepreneurs guided by contrarian theories of how value can be created.

So even if contradictions don’t play a prominent role in introductory classes on strategy, they certainly play a role in understanding where new and innovative strategies come from.

That said, the question remains: how do we come up with creative strategies in practice? Is there anything to learn from dialectical philosophy in doing so?

My answer to that is a clear yes. But since philosophy doesn’t hand us any simple step by step instructions for how, I will attempt something that is a contradiction in itself: distill some of the dialectical thinking into a simple framework for creative problem solving. A normative acronym framework. The ultimate cliche of strategy and management.

Hegel and his peers likely turn in their grave, but bear with me.

FLIP the narrative

The key to making the dialectic process normative is to first actively flip the narrative on established wisdom by seeking the contrast or contradiction of something, and then explore the revealed tensions.

I have done this countless times in strategy classes, and when I do, I often rely on my own little four step framework¹. The first and second step is about establishing the thesis and antithesis, respectively. The last two steps are about searching for a synthesis and associated value.

Step 1: FIND the established truths

The first step is to establish the thesis, which we can do by finding and listing the established wisdom and practices in the area we want to explore.

The trick here is to think hard enough about the established wisdom and practice to capture the more implicit assumptions of how things are done. Maybe we assume that our target customers’ problems are best solved with a product? That we need experts to build good products? That good customer service is important in our market? That customers come to us?

The value of this step is in making explicit the things we do simply because “that’s how we usually do it.” When we do this in class, it’s common to be surprised by how many implicit assumptions we just take for granted. So don’t worry if your list gets long. A good list of established practices and wisdom is the ammo we need for the next steps.

Step 2: LOOK for contrasts and contradictions

The second step is to establish the antitheses. And to do so, we actively look for contrasts and contradictions to the items on our list from 1). That is, we want to arrive at another list, where each statement is contrasting or contradicting an item on our first list.

This is, however, often more difficult than it appears. After all, we try to contrast and contradict established wisdom. So let me provide some guidance on how it can be done.

The easiest way to get going is to generate simple opposites by flipping each item on your original list on its head. This will create a list of clear contrasts. For example: What is the contrast to “product”? Service. What is the contrast to “good customer service”? No service at all. What is the contrast to “customers come to us”? We go to customers. What is the contrast to “we need experts to build good products?”. We don’t need experts to build good products.

Then we can use these initial contrasts as starting points for more nuanced contradictions. For example, if the established wisdom is “we need experts to build good products,” and the simple contrast is “we don’t”, a more nuanced contradiction could be “we need naive outsiders to build good products”.

When you look for the contradictions it’s easy to dismiss those that seem impractical. For example, “we need naive outsiders to build good products” sound almost ridiculous. But this filtering instinct is exactly what we now need to resist. The goal is quantity and breadth of contradictory possibilities, not immediate practical relevance.

Step 3: INVESTIGATE concrete problems

The third step is to search for a synthesis by investigating concrete problems that need to be solved for the items on your list from Step 2 to be true.

For example, consider the statement from Step 2 of “we need non-experts to build good products”: Which problems will have to be solved for this to be true?

We know that expertise builds on deep pattern recognition, but also that expertise creates blind spots. Maybe bringing in naive outsiders is the very solution to the blind spot problems of deep experts? If so, a concrete problem that must be solved is getting those outsiders into a position where they can actually spot what the insiders miss, and then capitalise on it.

In investigating the specific problems that need to be solved for the items from step 2 to be true, we are getting closer to the kind of questions we are hunting for: The well formulated problems.

The challenge is that the best problems often take work to see. Our natural tendency is to resolve any tension quickly. Either by deeming a problem unsolvable, or by quickly jumping to the first best solution we can think of. Resist this urge. Staying in the discomfort of the tension long enough for the deeper insights to give up their names takes some discipline, but it is worth it more often than not.

Then make a third list of all the concrete problems you identified that have to be solved for the contradictory statements from step 2 to be true. Problems that need to be solved for us to arrive at a synthesis.

Some of the problems on your list might seem unsolvable. Keep them anyway for now.

Step 4: PROPOSE value if problems are solved

The fourth step is to think about the benefits and value that could be created if the problems we identified in step 3 are solved.

By adding the prospective value that might come from solving the problem, we have built a theory. A value theory on the form of if we do that, then we will achieve this. A clearly formulated hypothesis that can guide our search for solutions.

Going back to our example with the experts and naive outsiders: What value could we create if we solve the problem of getting naive outsiders into a position to spot what insiders miss?

If we manage to use naive outsiders’ perspective to identify opportunities invisible to market insiders, then we can build and launch solutions that challenge the incumbents in an industry.

That theory essentially describes the Norwegian venture factory Askeladden & Co. Naive (but highly competent) outsiders scanning markets from the outside, seeing the blindspot positions overlooked by the insiders, and then starting challenger companies. One assumption flipped, investigated, and followed to its logical conclusion. And we arrived at a problem that could birth a truly creative strategy.

And that is where the FLIP framework stops. It doesn’t land on a solution. It lands on a theory with a clear problem and a clearly articulated value potential attached. That’s deliberate. Without good problems, no good solutions. But finding the solutions, that is a job for other creative processes I will not describe here.

Closing

Have we now cracked the recipe for creating creative strategies?

Of course not. Most contradictions you reveal and explore will be dead ends. This is the very nature of contrarian creative work. If we look for gold, most of what we find is and always will be gravel. And even with a clearly defined problem, we must find a creative solution.

But having a systematic way to identify and explore hidden tensions will increase our chances of finding something valuable to work out from.

I have used the four questions of FLIP in countless strategy workshops to help people think creatively about strategy. It works, because it helps us break patterns. The closer and longer we’re involved in something, the more difficult it is to see the why behind “this is how we do things over here.” Forcing ourselves to make a list of established wisdoms, and then flip them, often reveal tensions and contradictions that we didn’t see before.

Still, what I think matters more than any framework is how long you can stay with the problem. Stay in the contradiction without forcing a quick resolution.

In my experience, creative brainstorming sessions too often jump prematurely to solutions. Finding good and non-obvious problems is often more important to an innovation than finding a novel solution. Staying long enough with the problems is more difficult than starting to search for solutions.

I am, however, convinced that every industry has potentially valuable creative strategies hiding in plain sight, disguised as contradictions we don’t see or are too quickly brushed aside. To find the tensions worth exploring more deeply, we just need to ask different questions and dare to sit in the discomfort of contradiction long enough to see what emerges. Simple in theory. Harder in practice.

1. Those familiar with theory based strategy will recognize the similarities between FLIP and the first part of the Value Lab framework by Felin, Gambardella and Zenger. Apart from deliberately not focusing the solution stage, FLIP also differs by focusing more on staying in the tension between specific thesis-antithesis pairs, and by being more agnostic on the level of analysis than the Value Lab.