The Power of Opposites (English) (e-Books)

An organization is a system and a marriage is a system. For a marriage system to be healthy it needs to perform four roles. The first is to perform a myriad of tasks: taking care of each other; taking care of the children and the house; earning enough to support the family; and so on.

Furthermore, because it is a system, the family needs rules and discipline— otherwise it becomes a mess. It needs to change and adapt, because a marriage is a multiyear commitment and over time things must change to be functional. And, last, a family needs a culture of interdependence based on intimacy, on mutual caring...on love.

For a family to achieve all those functions Dr. Adizes discovered that four roles need to be performed: the (P), (A), (E), and (I) roles, which are represented in the acronym (PAEI). Any time one or more of these roles is not being performed, the marriage will be missing something and can end up on the rocks.

The (PAEI) roles are incompatible and no one person can perform them well simultaneously. Thus, a marriage is necessarily a complementary team. One partner performs some of the roles, the other one the remaining roles. That also explains why, typically, opposites attract.

The problem is that once you put together people whose styles are different, conflict arises. The conflict can become dysfunctional and lead to divorce. Or it can lead to growth and self-actualization. What makes the difference is whether there is mutual trust and respect in the family.

 What mutual trust and respect means, and how it can be developed and nurtured, is the purpose of this book.