#107 - Resilience Through Balance or Conflict?

What attitudes support organisational resilience?

Does organisational resilience grow from collaborative teams made up of balanced individuals, or from teams energised by internal competition and the creative friction of opposing views?

Vasileios Georgiadis and Lazaros Sarigiannidis [1] explore this tension by reaching back to ancient philosophy, contrasting the perspectives of Aristotle and Heraclitus.

Aristotelian Mesotis

Aristotle argued that virtue lies in balance — the midpoint between two extremes. He called this state mesotis. Bravery, for example, is the mean between cowardice and recklessness. Moderation lies between asceticism and indulgence; generosity between greed and waste.

This moral compass does not prescribe exact behaviours but rather urges us to avoid both excess and deficiency. Virtuous action, in this view, is learned: we must discover, through experience and judgement, what the right balance looks like in a given context.

There are echoes here of Eastern philosophies — such as the coexistence of opposites in yin and yang, and of Jung’s notion of individuation, in which maturity requires integrating conflicting aspects of the self.

The organisational implications are more nuanced. Georgiadis and Lazaros Sarigiannidis claim that in Aristotelian perspective organisation has priority over individual. It is important to note however that for Aristotle, the basic unit is not the company, but the polis (the political community), which exists to make a good life possible. This is not necessarily true for modern corporation, which legally exists to generate profits for shareholders rather than good life for its employees.

Still, one can argue that an Aristotelian individual would not privilege personal gain above all else. Rather, they would aim to harmonise self-interest with collective interest — acting with concern for the common good. From this view, organisational resilience depends on reasonable members who are capable of balanced, collaborative action.

But does such balance come at a cost? Are these harmonious teams capable of challenging each other, avoiding groupthink, and driving innovation?

Heraclitean Metron

Heraclitus offered a different view. For him, reality is not static but constantly in flux. The world is not a collection of stable things, but a process, a river of change. His preferred image was fire: always changing, never the same, yet not without order.

This order is shaped by tension, a harmony born of opposing forces. Heraclitean metron does not imply disorder or chaos, but a dynamic process governed by proportion, rhythm, and transformation.

From this perspective, organisational resilience arises not from equilibrium, but from constructive conflict. Teams grow through challenge. Individuals sharpen one another through difference. Productive competition drives development and responsiveness. The organisation remains adaptive because it stays in motion.

Yet this raises its own risks: can teams fuelled by competition and tension avoid tipping into destructive conflict, the conflict that destroys trust, undermines long-term cohesion.

Constructive conflict is desired in this framework, but by its nature, it is difficult to sustain and easy to mismanage.

Can Balance and Conflict Coexist?

At first glance, the two perspectives seem opposed. Aristotelian mesotis calls for balance and virtue; Heraclitean metron values tension and change. Yet both share a view of reason as an active, discerning force — one that allows individuals to navigate complexity rather than apply fixed rules.

If we follow mesotis, we strive to balance our personal desires with the needs of the organisation.

If we follow metron, we pursue our own aims, trusting that resilience can emerge from the friction they create.

Edward Wilson [2] argues that the most integrated and cooperative groups generally outperform groups of selfish individualists. This can also be put in another way: a selfish individual will defeat an altruist, but a group of altruists will defeat a group of selfish individuals. But he also noted that individual aspirations remain essential for progress and the right balance between group and individuals creates most vibrant and successful societies.

So perhaps resilience does not lie in choosing between balance or conflict, but in the capacity to hold both. To strive for appropriate, reasoned action, while also accepting the messiness of reality, where ideals are imperfect and differing perspectives are a necessary condition for growth.

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References and Notes

1. Georgiadis, V., & Sarigiannidis, L. (2024). Organizational Resilience through the Philosophical Lens of Aristotelian and Heraclitean Philosophy. Philosophy of Management, 23(3), 377-393.

2. Wilson, E. O. (2012). The social conquest of earth. WW Norton & Company.