Creative Tension vs. Emotional Tension on Projects
Ever felt torn between where you are and where you want to be?
Creative Tension
In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge used the metaphor of a rubber band to describe Creative Tension. It's the gap between reality and vision. One end of the rubber band is tied to your current reality, the other to your goal. That tension? It’s what pulls you forward. Or snaps you back.
Here’s the challenge: Creative tension also triggers Emotional Tension: feelings of stress, frustration, doubt. If we don’t recognize the difference, we risk lowering our vision just to relieve the discomfort.
Here's an example (actual project).
The Vision.
As an L&D leader, you’re tasked with launching a cutting-edge technical training program for field engineers. The plan includes:
✅Hands-on workshops and field work
✅ A structured self-paced pre-learning regimen
✅ Pre- and post-testing
✅ An AI-enabled chatbot to support case studies and post-training reference
The Reality.
Your team has limited resources, a tight budget, and a go-to-market deadline measured in weeks—though building the full course would otherwise take months.
How Emotional Tension Can Lower the Vision.
Feeling overwhelmed, a team might decide to scale back drastically:
🚫 The blended learning model is scrapped in favor of static PowerPoint slides and PDF guides.
🚫 Instead of hands-on fieldwork, learners get text-heavy manuals.
Result: The team rolls these out as the learning solution, meeting the preferred timeline and calls it a day. But the impact is *meh*.
How Creative Tension Can Drive Us.
Instead of lowering the vision or charging ahead unrealistically, the team leans into the tension and brainstorms solutions together, considers other development methodologies and decides on an incremental, agile approach:
✅ Phase 1: Launch a job-aids-first version—essential checklists, hands-on case studies, and hands-on fieldwork guided by subject matter experts. Get feedback.
✅ Phase 2: Implement the feedback. Add: a live field site for controlled activities, implement the pre-work regimen including the pre-test, incorporate live expert panel discussions, and incorporate the post-test. Get feedback.
✅ Phase 3: Implement the feedback. Add: An early build of the AI-enabled chatbot, trained on real documentation, job aids, and recorded insights from previous phases. Get/implement feedback...
Result: By embracing creative tension instead of reacting to emotional tension, the team launches the first iteration (phase 1) in weeks instead of months, delivering immediate value while getting valuable feedback to evolve the high-impact program incrementally towards its original vision.
Tension is inevitable. The outcome is up to us.
