In the Hedgehog Effect: Building High-Performance Teams, Manfred Kets de Vries discusses why it is important to acknowledge and embrace the inherent complexity of teams. He refers to the dilemma of the Hedgehog, as presented by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The metaphor goes like this: during winter, two hedgehogs try to get close to one another to share their body heat. Yet once they do, they hurt each other with their quills. In response, they move apart to be more comfortable. The cold, however, drives them together again, and the cycle of approach and retreat continues. Finally, after a great deal of back and forth, the hedgehogs realise that they should maintain a slight distance from one another. Manfred notes that this “simultaneous need for closeness and distance is a fundamental reason why people often find it difficult to work successfully in groups and teams”.
In general, human relationships carry a substantial degree of ambivalence, requiring us to contain contradictory feelings and motivations. On top of this, the complexity of organisational life, with its matrix structures, multiple reporting lines, and diverse objectives, naturally creates an environment where competing commitments are unavoidable.
According to Kegan and Lahey (2001), competing commitments represent opposing forces or priorities that one must balance. They exist as a natural consequence of complex organisational and human systems where multiple valid but opposing priorities vie for attention and resources. They often emerge from the intersection of diverse stakeholder needs, limited resources, and different time horizons that individuals, teams, and organisations must navigate. In our work with clients, we often see this unfolding through the following recurring tensions:
- Performance ⇄ Learning: teams often struggle between delivering immediate results and investing in long-term capability development
- Individual ⇄ Collective Interests: team members frequently face choices between actions that benefit their personal goals versus those that serve the team’s objectives
- Stability ⇄ Change: teams wrestle with maintaining operational consistency while adapting to new circumstances, with tensions becoming especially pronounced during organisational transformations
- Task Focus ⇄ Relationship Maintenance: leaders face parallel demands between completing work tasks and maintaining team cohesion
- Control ⇄ Empowerment: another common paradox is between maintaining coordination through control mechanisms and fostering autonomy to enable innovation and motivation
- Short-term ⇄ Long-term Orientation: teams often struggle between meeting immediate deadlines and building sustainable practices
Insight into Action
One core element of our work at KDVI is that we are curious and willing to work with complexity. We are attuned not only to the structures and processes that facilitate teamwork but also to the messier aspects of team dynamics. That includes addressing the paradoxes and tensions that are inherent within teams.
In our interviews with teams across sectors, industries, and functions, managing opposing priorities and demands keeps coming up as a main challenge and source of frustration. This is often due to what they aspire to and logically think is important and what they do.
Visualising these tensions helps teams in many practical ways:
- When teams can identify the tensions they face, they gain clarity about why certain tasks or initiatives feel stuck. Instead of getting frustrated with each other, team members can see how different priorities naturally create tension.
- The mapping process also encourages more open discussion about trade-offs. Team members feel more comfortable acknowledging when they are pulled in different directions, leading to more honest conversations about resource allocation and priorities.
- With this knowledge, teams can become better at anticipating potential conflicts before they arise. By understanding their competing commitments upfront, they can plan more realistic timelines and build flexibility where needed.
- Perhaps most importantly, mapping helps teams move from blame to problem-solving. When everyone sees how tensions arise naturally from the work itself, rather than from individual shortcomings, the team can focus their energy on finding creative solutions together.
When teams openly recognise competing forces, they can develop more sophisticated strategies for handling these tensions productively. This awareness allows them to move beyond simplistic either/or thinking and embrace the paradox of leadership, where seemingly contradictory demands can coexist and even enhance team effectiveness. Furthermore, acknowledging these commitments together can help create psychological safety, enabling team members to discuss challenges openly and find creative solutions that address multiple objectives simultaneously.