While a lot of our work in transformation and innovation relates well to principles of physics, we worry that many leaders see organization theory and managing tensions as challenging as mastering string theory. We have a simpler analogy that we hope will help simplify their world: the stringing of a tennis racket.
When a racket is strung by an expert, each string running left to right holds potential energy. But the magic happens when you add the strings running top to bottom, weaving them under and over the horizontal ones. Suddenly, you don’t just have individual forces; you have a network where every tension point connects to and amplifies every other one.
Think about your company’s departments for a moment. Sales has its objectives and tensions. Marketing has its own. Operations, HR, Finance—each one is like an individual string, holding potential energy but operating largely in isolation. Just like those individual racket strings, these departments can function independently. They’ll get work done, meet some objectives, and contribute to the company. But they’re not maximizing their potential… they’re not amplifying each other’s efforts.
The temptation might be to just tune up the organization racket to 11. Give everyone stretch goals, celebrate the winners with company getaways to the Bahamas, and force-adjust anyone who strikes out swinging for the fences. But that’s not how tennis rackets work. A super-tightly strung tennis racket will just knock the ball past the foul line on contact. The professional tennis player needs to strike the right balance between force and control. They tune their racket to provide them with just the right “sweet spot.”
A pro can visualize their sweet spot, its size and location, and how it will transfer their power, skills, and strategy to success on the court. Aligning all the tensions within an organization, both within and between functions, requires a similar visualization tool for leadership to align and tune their plans, investments, culture, metrics and measurements, towards meeting their objectives. In Intentional Tension, we call that approach Tension Mapping™. Knowing how work really gets done is the first step toward establishing a competitive advantage.
Turning your organizational racket means recognizing that:
- Every department creates tension, and that’s not necessarily bad
- Positive tensions amplify your competitive advantage
- Negative tensions create drag and inefficiency
- The goal isn’t to eliminate tension but to optimize it
Your competition isn’t just other companies—it can be organizational dysfunction or, perhaps worse, apathy. Skill sets, core competencies, patenting the killer app—a player’s skill matters, but even the most talented champion needs the right racket to compete at the highest level.
The question isn’t whether your organization has tensions… It’s whether you’re using them to your advantage.