I like the idea of tension. Tension does not need to be binary though. For example in the case of efficiency vs. thoroughness I'd add a third obvious option: innovativeness. Innovations are neither efficient nor thorough. They may be promising but at the start they are poorly formed. So they can't be very good at what they are supposed to do, perhaps only a prototype. And because of lack of scale, they can't be efficient either.
You're right, tension doesn't need to be composed strictly of opposing binary forces. In fact, it often isn't. In practice I've found that you don't gain a lot by adding more dimensions right away. Gets crazy overwhelming. Even a simple tension is not simplistic. You're better off creating a separate tension then appending them later on, to create things like the Iron Triangle or the Project Management Triangle.
Now that you mention it, I do think innovativeness is a form of thoroughness, mainly based on the protocols required to increase the *probability* of innovation (it's not guaranteed, which makes it an extra interesting case! Similar to how efficiency or thoroughness improvements are not guaranteed at the margin).
"Do what we've always done" and "Let's just wait and see what happens" are forms of efficiency, and really not innovative. Unless you are a long way from the ETTO frontier, innovation requires a lot of resources for experiments, exploration, daydreaming, procrastinating, damage control, etc.
OK trying to get my head around this both in the abstract and by reflecting on life experience.
In the abstract I see tension as a kind of fitness landscape thing, or energy well thing. Meaning, conflicting forces pulling things into local optima. This and a a general aversion to one-dimensional thinking, either-or, makes me more sympathetic to adding forces, if they are making the model more useful. Example in a game of political coalitions whereby the parties have somewhat conflicting and somewhat overlapping interests, the forces created by these lists of conflicting interests will create some kind of stable local optima where coalitions form. And it is rarely (only in America!) only two parties of which only one "wins". The "winner" is an equlibrium between many forces.
In practical life experience - say in my business, efficiency os not constrained by thoroughness but mainly by the fight for scale. And thoroughness is partially constrained by the inability to be efficient, yes, but only because lack of scale means lack of specialisation, therefore lack of thoroughness. Innovation is needed both to reach scale, and to improve thoroughness in the long run.
So I do think it's more complicated. Perhaps ETTO only applies in mature situaitions where equilibria have long been found.
I like the idea of tension. Tension does not need to be binary though. For example in the case of efficiency vs. thoroughness I'd add a third obvious option: innovativeness. Innovations are neither efficient nor thorough. They may be promising but at the start they are poorly formed. So they can't be very good at what they are supposed to do, perhaps only a prototype. And because of lack of scale, they can't be efficient either.
You're right, tension doesn't need to be composed strictly of opposing binary forces. In fact, it often isn't. In practice I've found that you don't gain a lot by adding more dimensions right away. Gets crazy overwhelming. Even a simple tension is not simplistic. You're better off creating a separate tension then appending them later on, to create things like the Iron Triangle or the Project Management Triangle.
Now that you mention it, I do think innovativeness is a form of thoroughness, mainly based on the protocols required to increase the *probability* of innovation (it's not guaranteed, which makes it an extra interesting case! Similar to how efficiency or thoroughness improvements are not guaranteed at the margin).
"Do what we've always done" and "Let's just wait and see what happens" are forms of efficiency, and really not innovative. Unless you are a long way from the ETTO frontier, innovation requires a lot of resources for experiments, exploration, daydreaming, procrastinating, damage control, etc.
OK trying to get my head around this both in the abstract and by reflecting on life experience.
In the abstract I see tension as a kind of fitness landscape thing, or energy well thing. Meaning, conflicting forces pulling things into local optima. This and a a general aversion to one-dimensional thinking, either-or, makes me more sympathetic to adding forces, if they are making the model more useful. Example in a game of political coalitions whereby the parties have somewhat conflicting and somewhat overlapping interests, the forces created by these lists of conflicting interests will create some kind of stable local optima where coalitions form. And it is rarely (only in America!) only two parties of which only one "wins". The "winner" is an equlibrium between many forces.
In practical life experience - say in my business, efficiency os not constrained by thoroughness but mainly by the fight for scale. And thoroughness is partially constrained by the inability to be efficient, yes, but only because lack of scale means lack of specialisation, therefore lack of thoroughness. Innovation is needed both to reach scale, and to improve thoroughness in the long run.
So I do think it's more complicated. Perhaps ETTO only applies in mature situaitions where equilibria have long been found.