Is it good or bad to be "on the fence"?

You may have been told or felt the need to tell someone, "come on now, get off the fence, you gotta make a choice!" Well, are you right? Is ambivalence always bad? Is there ever a point where you want someone to see two options as equally viable?

The field of change is quite concerned with ambivalence toward the change. Most change scholars, including myself, see ambivalence as the major factor that keeps people stuck in status quo. Even when people admit they should change, like exercise more or spend more time reading than playing with their computer, they fail to "get off their duff", which is a more direct way to say, "get off the fence." Thus, ambivalence has received, and rightfully so in many instances, a bad name. It is a sign of lack of character to some. It certainly is an indicator that a person will not achieve their ultimate potential.

BUT, let me offer another perspective. Suppose someone is in a "dead wrong" position on something important? What if their idea of truth is just 180 degrees off target? What if they are going down the wrong path "lickety split"? Wouldn't a little dose of ambiguity slow them down from disaster? Wouldn't you want them to at least begin to question their fixation on something that is harmful to them?

I think you would. So, what do you do? You rarely get them from going left to going right in one moment. Most often transformation or directional change is not a turning on a dime. It occurs because the wrong path that a person is absolute about becomes ambivalent to them. They begin to question whether they are right or not. Their world gets a little shaken. Disequilibrium occurs first, then clarity.

So what's the point prof? I have been thinking a lot lately about transformation and the role I play in how other people make directional changes. I found myself thinking like the mainstream that ambivalence was my enemy, and my job is creating clarity of the new. But after further reflection, I am convinced I must also be able to create ambivalence in the "unambiguous wrong". Its a different process. There's tremendous value there. Something I can benefit from pondering, what about U????