Customers or employees? Digital or physical? Profit or loyalty?
Questions like these are provocative, but they do more harm than good. How? By implying the two things on either side of “or” are mutually exclusive (i.e. a false dichotomy).
Humans crave simple, clear-cut answers because, when they exist, we don’t have to think as hard or make tradeoffs. Unfortunately, our world is not clear-cut. Customers and employees are both important. Leaders have to strike a balance between short-term profit and long-term relationships. The trick is knowing when to emphasize one factor over the other.
Rather than ask simplistic either/or questions (which don’t help anyone hone their judgment) we need to accept that the answer is always “it depends” and think critically about a follow-up question: “On what?” When we have to make a tradeoff between two essential but naturally competing factors, what criteria should we use to make the decision? Under what conditions should we favor one over the other?
Those questions produce something more valuable than a yes or no answer – the ability to think.
