Don’t Be Afraid of Tension
Most leaders try to avoid relationship tension at all costs. But creating the right amount of tension can drive performance and make great things happen.
For the past few months, I’ve been studying the leadership tactics of the four most iconic entrepreneurs of our time—Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates—for a book I’m writing on how the dark side of leadership drives innovation. In the process, one big idea I’ve discovered is that there are countless examples of how these guys created tension as a way to drive results. I’ve probably read at least 15 examples of Bezos going into a meeting that’s not going well and absolutely fucking losing it. He gets really angry with the team, and lo and behold, the team figures out a way to fix the problem and make a quantum leap ahead in their project.
There’s also a great story that drives home this point about a confrontation between Steve Jobs and the glass maker for the iPhone.
In the early stages, the iPhone prototype used a plastic screen, which Jobs found unsatisfactory because it scratched easily in his pocket. Jobs wanted scratch-resistant and durable glass, so he sought an alternative. This quest led him to Corning Glass and its CEO, Wendell Weeks. During their meeting, Weeks introduced Jobs to "Gorilla Glass," a super-strong, scratch-resistant glass that Corning had developed in the 1960s but never produced. Jobs was impressed and decided it was the perfect fit for the iPhone. There was one problem: Corning had never manufactured Gorilla Glass on a large scale, and Jobs wanted a massive amount within six months for the iPhone launch. Corning's management declared it an impossible request.
Jobs wasn’t exactly polite or subtle with Corning as he sought to make the impossible happen. As Walter Isaacson notes in his 2011 biography of Jobs, Weeks initially said no, that his company couldn’t do it. But Jobs stared Weeks down and told him point-blank: “You can do this”—so Corning ramped up production. Without Jobs lighting a fire under Weeks’ ass and refusing to take no for an answer, it’s unlikely that Corning would have been able to muster the resources and creative problem-solving necessary to meet the deadline. But he did, and the rest is history. Gorilla Glass became a key feature of the iPhone, contributing significantly to its success and revolutionizing the smartphone industry with durable, scratch-resistant screens. Both companies have made billions as a result.
This is a great example of how tension can be used to drive results. This is something that happens all the time in business, sometimes more skillfully and other times less so.
Jobs, Bezos, Gates, and Musk make a habit of creating tension in their business dealings, for better or for worse. If we are simply looking through the lens of performance, financial success, and innovation, we can say that this technique “works.” Used more extremely (as it was by these four), this tactic is indeed morally questionable. But there’s a more reasonable, measured way to do it that can work wonders, without creating stress or harming relationships.
So how does tension work?
I define my version of tension as discomfort in an interpersonal relationship that arises as a result of a difference in expectations, values, or perspectives. When two or more people are not in agreement about what needs to happen or how things are going, tension is the natural result.
It goes like this: if you show up and do good work, and your manager is happy with you, there’s no tension. If you keep delivering at a high level, the relationship remains tension-free. But if you do bad work or fail to deliver, then your manager is upset and you’ve got some tension to deal with.
When you work for a leader like Bezos or Jobs, it sucks if you’re doing bad work because they are going to generate a LOT of tension when their expectations aren’t met. You will realize pretty quickly that the way to keep the peace is to do great work. A manager who’s not afraid of tension will make your life unpleasant if you continue to do bad work, and they’ll let you know that you will likely lose your job if it persists.
As the employee, it’s on you to resolve the tension. The leader isn’t the one to resolve the tension. He or she is happy to hold it until it leads to their desired outcome. Great leaders are willing to hold tension because they know it creates leverage that leads to creative solutions, hard work, and a motivation to do better.
Creating Tension as a Manager or Leader
The most important thing when it comes to tension is to create the right amount. Too little tension can lead to lax standards and subpar work, while an excess of tension can create frayed relationships and toxic workplace cultures. Think of it like tuning a guitar. Just the right amount of tension on the string gets the instrument in tune. Not enough tension and the guitar sounds awful. Too much and the string breaks.
This applies outside the work environment, too. Tension is a great tool when you have a contractor working on your house. Contractors are all about relieving tension, in my experience! If you don’t create at least a little tension, you may find that your contractor doesn’t take the job seriously, they may actually not show up for several months. I know several people who have utilized tension with their contractors as a way to turn things around after a job started to go south. When they were clear and direct about the consequences of not finishing a job or not delivering a certain level of quality, the contractor got serious about stepping it up.
But let’s be clear that creating tension and being an asshole are two different things. I’d never suggest that you bully and belittle people. (Don’t be mean to your contractor!) Obviously, it goes without saying that kindness and respect are baseline requirements of any interpersonal exchange. My personal go-to for getting to that sweet spot of “just right” tension is non-violent communication, which is an excellent framework for having difficult conversations in an impactful yet compassionate way. You can read my post on the subject to learn some of the basic principles of NVC.
Getting Comfortable with Discomfort
This leadership tactic is all about being willing to say the hard thing. It’s about being comfortable sharing “negative” emotions like disappointment and frustration, and not shying away from criticism. To do that, you have to be willing to hold the tension.
That’s not always an easy thing to do. Most of us are agreeable, well-meaning people, and we look for any way to resolve the tension because it’s too uncomfortable to hold. I have found that this description fits the majority of my coaching clients when we first start. They’ll do everything in their power to resolve any tension that arises on their team. In fact, they often view tension as an opportunity to hop in and do the work themselves or be the hero. Rarely do they realize how much energy they’re expending trying to resolve the tension, and also sabotaging their team’s productivity. A true double whammy.
This is a huge mistake for leaders. In avoiding tension, you disempower your team and may inadvertently keep them from doing great work and taking responsibility for their targets. For most of us, it looks like the following: Your employee didn’t reach their goals? No big deal, let’s just move on. Didn’t perform to your standards? All good, you’ll get it next time, don’t worry about it. One of my clients has a board member who is completely non-responsive. When he asks for something and the board member doesn’t deliver, my client just steps in and delivers himself. He relieves the tension for that person, and the message to the board members is that there are no consequences for just chilling on this board. As a result, his board doesn’t deliver.
I think you get the picture here: If you don’t create adequate tension, you are leaving a lot on the table as a manager or leader. Your rule of thumb should be that instead of trying to resolve any tension that arises, you learn how to skillfully create it and be willing to hold it.
I love watching Coach Prime practice because if somebody doesn’t do good work or they’re a little lazier or slower, he gets pissed off. Correction: he gets really, really, really pissed off. And people feel it. They feel the consequences of being lazy or not doing the work.
The truth is that challenging emotions inspire people to move and to do things differently. And that is what a leader is here to do—to help their teams improve in the areas where they are underperforming.
There’s no need for the emotional volatility or abusive behavior that’s seen so often at the elite levels of business and sport. But we can take the nugget of wisdom here and use tension in a healthy and respectful way to drive performance and make incredible things happen.
Nice, Matt. I'm listening to Elon biography right now, and I was literally thinking the exact same thing: Elon, Jobs, Bezos, and Gates are all highly demanding, tons of tension (and mostly) assholes. If you listen to the blather out there about being a leader it's "you need to be nice, kind, loving"--I get it. These guys are not, and they're the one's changing the world.
I look at business like as a high-performing sports team. The coach isn't there to coddle you. Practice isn't optional. Giving less than 100% is not acceptable. You do something wrong, the coach chews your ass out. Why? Because he/she wants the best out of you, the best for the team, and the best for you, period.
We live in such a sensitive time, where people aren't willing to work in that type of environment. I think it's too bad. We need the tension. We need a little bit of an ass chewing. We need to have high expectations--not only from our "coach" but for ourselves. It seems we're resolved to make business as convenient and comfortable as possible--like that's the primary goal. It's disgusting, imo.
Anyway, great newsletter and I look forward to your book coming out!