Other Uses
The phrase dynamic tension is also used in the business discipline of performance measurement to illustrate the benefits of competing priorities. People tend to behave in ways which will optimize their own rewards and recognition. If the business rewards the employee solely on one measure such as revenue, the employee will be incented to make sales even when they are unprofitable. On the other hand, measuring solely on profit ratios leads to cherry-picking of sales opportunities, lost volume and higher unit costs (because the fixed costs of production must be spread over fewer units). Any one key performance indicator can be manipulated. Rewarding employees based on both revenue and profit ratio is more complex but tends to lead to better alignment between the employees' incentives and the desired business results. Like the competing tensions of two arms pulling against each other, the two competing business priorities are said to be in dynamic tension with each other.
This principle was exemplified in the concept of the balanced scorecard.
The phrase dynamic tension is a key concept used in The Empowerment Dynamic which is used by executive, life, and leadership coaches to help people move out of the drama triangle and into a choice-based and outcome-oriented worldview.
This term is used by the religious leader Bokonon to describe the way to create a good society in Cat's Cradle.
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