Many firms are confronted with paradoxical tensions. For firms to recognize tensions these have to become salient. Prior research suggests that environmental and cognitive factors render latent tensions salient and argues implicitly that where environmental factors are complex, paradoxical cognition is required. In this paper we present the general model of rendering paradoxical tensions salient where developing cognition is only one of three possible strategies. We argue that information must fit both a described situation and actors’ cognition for latent tensions to become salient. Based on this condition we introduce the other two alternative ways to make tensions salient, i.e. simplification of the information and simplification of the situation, that have been overlooked by scholars. Using the doubly complex application of coopetition for sustainability we show how the strategy of simplification of the information can help to recognize and systemize paradoxical tensions.