Where's Yin? The Case of Yang

“There's no shortage of ambition among corporate top lieutenants. But if they collide with a founder who mightn't yet have reached age 40, that's a recipe for management upheaval. It's also likely to provoke intense anxiety among investors, customers and employees.

“Anyone attending The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference last week saw how challenging such human interplay can be. Three famous high-tech founders -- Microsoft Corp.'s Bill Gates, Yahoo Inc.'s Jerry Yang and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg -- took the stage for separate appearances. Each was joined by his company's most powerful nonfounding executive.

“While all the speakers did their best to make nice, it didn't take a Geiger counter to sense that offstage, each management team might have a few issues to work out.

“Microsoft's executives were the most candid about the challenges. Mr. Gates said he had a hard time pulling back from day-to-day decisions after handing over the CEO's job to longtime colleague Steve Ballmer in 2000...

“At the conference, Messrs. Gates and Ballmer talked about how it has taken a while for them to establish that Mr. Ballmer has risen to be the ‘senior partner’ in their business relationship, while Mr. Gates has become the ‘junior partner’ ...

“Mr. Yang's toughest moment came when he was asked to define Yahoo's business. ‘We want you to start your day with Yahoo,’ he said. ‘We want you to come to Yahoo multiple times a day.’

“That brought a quick interjection from Sue Decker, the company's 44 year-old president... Aware that Yahoo has been criticized in the past for sprawling into too many areas, she said: ‘It's a little bit of a change. We still do hundreds of things. But we want to focus Yahoo on four things’ -- its home page, search, email and mobile communications.

“After the Yahoo presentation, conference attendees were buzzing about what struck them as a hazily defined strategy. With Mr. Yang and Ms. Decker emphasizing different elements...

“‘Once you've founded a company, you tend to think extremely highly of your abilities,’ says David Lewin, a professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. ‘And in some ways you should.’ But founders' hubris can often get them in trouble, he cautions...

“Adam Galinsky, a professor at Northwestern University… says. ‘Many people have to learn the lessons themselves. Their own experience counts for much more than anything anyone else will tell them.’”

(“Business: Founders' Hubris Fuels Corporate Drama.” George Anders. Wall Street Journal: June 4, 2008. p. B.2)

SPRING AND FALL, sunshine and shadow, fire and ice -- yang is the former, yin is the latter.

The tension of paired opposites can tear us apart, or it can generate creation as two complement each other in a dynamic cycle of birth, growth, maturity, decline and re-birth.

Shall we dance?