Book Review: Both/And Thinking

“Do we focus on the needs of today or tomorrow, or ourselves or others, of stability or change? Competing demands surround us. Yet lurking within these dilemmas are paradoxes – contradictory, yet interdependent tensions. To effectively respond, we must first understand more about the nature of paradoxes.” So beings the excellent new 2022 book ‘Both/And Thinking” by Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis (Harvard Business Review Press).

This book is all about understanding paradoxes – like those mentioned above – and this understanding is vital to the solving of these complex problems of today. This book helps us to identify the paradoxes we might face, and also offers ways to navigate them so as to turn them into a positive. It is built around the idea of changing perspective from and ‘either/or’ option where we can only choose one or the other, but to see if we can have both – using both/and thinking.

The book, which is very well researched by two esteemed academics with bountiful practical experience, is divided into three parts. The first part explains the foundations of paradox and identifies four types. Part two looks at approaches to unpacking both/and thinking and includes four tools to put this into practice. The final part is a step-by-step process using specific examples at the individual, group, and organisational level.

Established and emerging leaders would benefit greatly from reading this book and adopting a new mindset that considers what is possible, rather than what we have to sacrifice. We highly recommend this new book.