The following quote summed it up nicely for me:

Maturity is achieved when a person accepts life as full of tension. Joshua L. Liebman

My point is simply that, too frequently, things get posited as mutually exclusive when that is not necessarily so. For example, a common idea is that a focus on effectiveness –on clear goals, well-implemented strategies, and relevant performance indicators — is in conflict with other things we value: passion, humility, empathy, listening to and involving those on the ground, and the list goes on. My view is that, on the contrary, these things can — and often do — go hand in hand. Our publications and case studies (not to mention history) are replete with examples of this. Obviously, Michael, as I think you know, I do not believe all convictions should be lightly held, nor, I am sure, do the authors of the Monitor Institute report! I think the context for that quote, if you read my original post, is clear — and unrelated to the kind of example you give above. Thanks for weighing in.

Sometimes, we act as if there aren’t tensions when there are. Sometimes, we act as if there are tensions where there are not.

I think the former tends to happen when we are together – when we feel a kind of social pressure is to agree. I agree with Michael, of course, that debate is healthy and frankly have been frustrated that our attempts to spark it at our conferences haven’t always worked because people seem to want to find common ground when there isn’t much.

I think the latter happens more often in writing (or on cable news), when people are proposing some “new way” and trying to drive attention to their ideas – and so feel a need to explain that the “new way” is far better than the old, “broken,” way. Sometimes that’s true; often, it’s more complicated than that.

This is, in part, what my colleague Ellie Buteau and I wrote about recently in the Chronicle, which you then blogged about, Sean and a number of folks then commented on in a good, healthy, debate. We wrote, “It seems that purveyors of new philanthropic formulas for making a difference are everywhere. Offering anecdotes and snazzy adjectives modifying the word ‘philanthropy,’ they extrapolate from a success story or two, promising that their approach—fill-in-the-blank philanthropy—will allow foundations and philanthropists to finally show progress in solving our toughest societal challenges.” We quoted Michael Mauboussin, author of Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition, who argues that “the right answer to most questions that professionals face is, ‘It depends.’”

I guess what I am saying is, let’s recognize that in life, and especially in this work, things are often more complicated than they seem. So that’s why I hope our colleagues at Monitor Institute are correct when they write: “Convictions that were once trumpeted confidently are now more lightly held. That’s good, and speaks well of a growing sophistication and maturity that can shape the years ahead.”

Too often, funders hold what may be mutually exclusive, or at least conflicting beliefs (we should provide extensive non-monetary support to our grantees AND we should empower grantees to make their own decisions! We should stay true to our own internally designed strategic solutions to social problems AND we should be members of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and celebrate the idea of general operating support!)

A “dichotomy” is when you split a single item into two non-overlapping elements. In the real world, life is messy and there is often much overlap within ideas and beliefs. So I agree that we should reject false-dichotomies. Yet, the Monitor report talks about “creative tension”, the idea that there is real, meaningful tension between different approaches. So I think it is just as important for us to reject attempts to ignore the tensions in philanthropy.

Reject dichotomies and embrace the tension of living in the messy real world?

I so rarely feel any “tension” in the room when I attend philanthropic gatherings. My own attempts to create “debate” in philanthropy is often met with criticism from people who feel that I’m creating unneeded tension and that in fact “the two sides have much in common”. Well, of course they do. But they have real differences as well.