283: Wendy Smith, A strategy to navigate a paradox

The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 283, an episode with an expert on organizational paradoxes, Wendy Smith. Get Wendy’s Book here: https://amzn.to/3fF1b8C

When faced with a tough decision-making situation, it is common for us to assess and select what we believe is the best deal and then move on. We tend to assume that we need to pick one option and eliminate the other. But what if we could actually succeed in pursuing both options?

In this episode with Wendy Smith, we discuss how leaders and individuals can effectively respond to contradictory yet interdependent demands and have the mindset shift needed to successfully navigate a paradox.

Wendy Smith is the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management and faculty director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. She earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, where she began her intensive research on strategic paradoxes—how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory yet interdependent demands.

Working with executives and scholars globally, she received the Web of Science Highly Cited Research Award (2019, 2020, and 2021) for being among the 1 percent most-cited researchers in her field and received the Decade Award (2021) from the Academy of Management Review for the most cited paper in the past 10 years. Her work has been published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, Organization Science, and Management Science.

She has taught at the University of Delaware, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania–Wharton while helping senior leaders and middle managers all over the world address issues of interpersonal dynamics, team performance, organizational change, and innovation.

Wendy lives in Philadelphia with her husband, three children, and the family dog.

Get Wendy’s book here:

Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. Wendy Smith, Marianne Lewis, Amy C. Edmondson. https://amzn.to/3fF1b8C

Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo