Some leaders have been whipping their organizations like a spinning top, a frantic behaviour that has precious little time to look ahead or find new ways of doing things. The shareholders' demands for immediate returns are relentlessly driving this behaviour. There is a need for balancing and blending the corporate opposites with which leaders are frequently faced:

• short term versus long term
• strategy or tactics
• revenue and cost
• emotion versus logic
• innovation versus repetition
• outsourcing or in-house
• risk versus security
• demanding versus influencing
• work or home-life

The juggling of a double-headed top or 'diabolo' represents the need to balance these with agility. Originating in Ancient China the Diabolo spins by deploying two sticks and a piece of string, whipping with one hand and bouncing with the other hand, just as a leader needs to demonstrate the right amount of challenge and support, so that the organisation hums with vitality.

A strategy for delivering results while building trust through credible behaviour