Stop rushing to resolve two competing objectives

Responding with “which is more important?” is holding you back

👋 Hi, it's Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on everything you wish your CEO told you about how to get ahead.

Right now at Section, I’m asking the leadership team to do two seemingly contradictory things – grow the business quickly, and spend as little money as possible.

Obviously it’s hard to do both. That’s why we raise venture capital – to fund rapid growth without worrying about every expense. But I’ve been down the road of raising a lot of money, and I know how painful it is when growth slows and expenses don’t. This year, I want to grow 50% (or more) – and conserve cash.

The natural reaction to a request like this is, “We can’t do both.” For many junior execs, the tension of competing priorities seems like it needs a faster resolution – “which is more important?” is usually the answer I get.

But in fact, premature resolution eliminates creative solutions, and this “either/or” thinking keeps smart people from becoming strategic leaders (and flags you as junior).

The best leaders don’t resolve every contradiction they encounter. Instead, they hold competing priorities in their mind, and make progress while operating within the tension.

Here’s how to do it.

- Greg

How to operate within tension

As a rising exec, you’ll frequently be asked to do two things that compete with each other:

“Get a lot of leads, but make them high-quality.”

“Sell ahead of the roadmap, but make sure clients are happy with what we ship.”

“Take on more work, but don’t expand the team.”

Junior executives usually respond by rushing to resolve the tension. In other words, they say: “These conflict, so we need to choose.”

Rising executives react differently. They say: “These priorities conflict, so let’s explore what the opportunities and challenges are.”

Here are a few ways to “operate within tension” as you figure out your plan.

Assume you are not on the hook.

The biggest weakness of high performers is that they hate failure, and they try to mitigate it before they’ve even failed. Whatever the challenge, don’t assume you’re being asked to solve it RIGHT NOW or that the company/team will go forward with your solution.

You can’t effectively engage with the competing priorities and come up with creative ideas if you keep jumping ahead to the constraints. Pretend someone else will be accountable for this, and allow yourself to imagine solutions that aren’t tied to the current resources/limitations/knowledge you have today.

Specifics matter, so put dimensions around the objectives.

Junior executives tend to assume the worst – aka, the most difficult possible version of every goal. Before you say “it can’t be done,” make sure you know what you’re saying yes or no to.

If you’re asked to provide a lot of high-quality leads, you need to know what “a lot” and “high-quality” actually mean. Instead of saying, “We need to choose,” start by asking questions. What does the data say about the number of leads needed? What do you know about their desired level/title/company size/engagement status? You’re asking these questions to better define the MVP for “high quality” and “a lot” of leads.

Understand the context.

To come up with the right solution, you need to know why both competing priorities are important. Sometimes this might seem obvious – of course most teams want the highest number of high quality leads they can get. But sometimes it’s less obvious – your CMO wants a lot of leads to build a brand and position the company as a thought leader which is a board-level priority this year, but the highest ACV deals come from the “highest quality” leads.

By understanding the context, or the why behind both asks, you can think of more creative solutions.

Ask expansion questions, not elimination questions.

Most junior execs go straight to: “Which matters more?” Instead, ask questions like: “What would we need to meet both requirements?” “What’s preventing us from achieving both?” “Who else has solved this?”

Here’s what I’d want my leadership team to ask, when faced with the challenge of capital-efficient growth:

• Put dimensions around the request: “What does high growth mean to us – is it 50%, 100%, or something else? And what does capital-efficient mean – would we consider a small fundraise to fund 100% year-over-year growth?” (Of course we would).

• Understand context: “Are we being capital-efficient because we’re out of money, or because it’s the new expectation of investors, or something else? Which revenue streams are most capital-intensive for us (high-margin consulting vs. lower-margin implementation work)?”

• Ask expansion questions. “How could we shift the team to more high-margin work without adding headcount?” “Could we partner or acquire for some of our more costly work?”

Our advice

Here’s the unsaid reality. As a leader, sometimes I frame a challenge this way to purposefully push my team’s thinking. I want to force us to think bigger or differently. And a great way to do that is to force people to hold two competing ideas in their minds and assume both are possible.

I’m not looking for the perfect solution to the two competing priorities – usually, there isn’t one. It’s about having the impulse control to pause, reflect, engage with the challenge, ask questions, and move forward without resolution.

Execs who mature into strategic leaders learn to slow their reaction loop. They feel tension and ambiguity without getting agitated (or defensive), and learn to operate within paradoxes instead of resolving them.

Competing priorities will become more and more common (and thorny) as you climb the ladder, so practice this now. Ask yourself: Do I need to rush to resolve this, or can I sit in this discomfort a little longer? And can I use this discomfort as fuel to open up my thinking and my own ambitions?

Have a great week,

Greg and Taylor