The importance of seeing the World in Shades of Grey

This week we stumbled upon an interesting article on the insight about how important it is to see the world in shades of grey. Below we share with you an abstract of the article.

Manfred Kets de Vries, INSEAD Distinguished Professor of Leadership Development & Organisational Change, identified that a strict distinction of opposites can produce a distorted picture of reality and restricts the range of thoughts and emotions. Kets de Vries found that, if we look at a multifaceted situation through a binary lens we are bound to miss essential details. In fact such a perception harms relationships, diminishes overall well-being and limits our understanding of the world. He has been working with several team leaders who were suffering from what he calls: “bivalent leadership style”; people who are successful in terms of their field of work but are struggling on a interpersonal level. The main insights of the article is that this working style can be altered by the following:

paying more attention to our own and others’ mental state, when analysing a situation,
reducing our tendency to judge others,
and developing a greater curiosity and enhanced compassion towards others.

In her Report on “Innovation – the path of embracing change to create value” Bettina gives further insight on why such a more multifaceted attitude is important in the context of innovation and explains why “the times of either / or are over”.

You can access the full report here:

Innovation – the path of embracing change to create value; 4th Innovation Best Practice & Future Challenges Report

Original article published on Insead Knowledge on the 7th of April 2015. Read the full article here

Tags: behavioural science, innovation culture, innovation teams, leadership