June 30, 2025

211: How to Use Both/And Thinking | Professor Wendy Smith

21 minutes

Wendy Smith is an award-winning business professor at the University of Delaware, where she also serves as Co-director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Wendy’s research focuses on strategic paradoxes – how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory agendas. Her research has been published in top-tier academic journals and her book, Both/And Thinking, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2022.

Wendy earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School.

In this episode we discuss the following:

When we view our challenges through an either/or lens, we limit our options, often leading to suboptimal decisions. Both/and thinking, on the other hand, enhances creativity leading to better outcomes.

Take fairness, for example. Some argue it means treating everyone the same. Others believe it requires treating people differently to ensure comparable outcomes. Both views have merit and represent a classic paradox. And this is where Wendy’s process if helpful. First, notice the paradox, notice the either/or. And then change the frame to see if we can accomplish both. Is there a win/win that allows us to do both right now? I love Wendy’s mule analogy here—the mule, a hybrid of horse and donkey, represents the power of combining two different paths. And if we can’t do both at once, maybe we can do both over time. Wendy’s tightrope metaphor was excellent. A tightrope walker stays balanced by making continuous, slight adjustments as they move forward.

If we stick to either/or thinking we risk getting trapped, incapable of adapting when context changes.

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By Nate Meikle

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