Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box - By The Arbinger Institute
Date read: 2017-04-22How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
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Are you in the box or out of the box? Insight into how to be a better leader by being self-aware of how you treat others and how they want to be treated. By identifying them as people and not objects. Good read for someone who needs to improve their Emotional Intelligence.
Contents:
My Notes
Of all the problems in organizations, self-deception is the most common, and the most damaging.
It won’t matter if the other person tries managing by walking around, sitting on the edge of the chair to practice active listening, inquiring about family members in order to show interest, or using any other skill learned in order to be more effective. What we’ll know and respond to is how that person is regarding us when doing those things.
No matter what we’re doing on the outside, people respond primarily to how we’re feeling about them on the inside. And how we’re feeling about them depends on whether we’re in or out of the box concerning them.
One way, I experience myself as a person among people. The other way, I experience myself as the person among objects. One way, I’m out of the box; the other way, I’m in the box.
People primarily respond not to what we do but to how we’re being — whether we’re in or out of the box toward them.
There are two ways to be hard. I can engage in hard behaviors and be either in the box or out of the box when I do them. The distinction isn’t the behavior. It’s the way I’m being when I am doing whatever I’m doing — be it soft or hard.
It’s possible to deliver just that kind of hard message and still be out of the box when doing it. But it can be done out of the box only if the person you are delivering the message to is a person to you.
Self-betrayal - In acting contrary to my sense of what was appropriate, I betrayed my own sense of how I should be toward another person. Examples include times when I had a sense of something I should do for others but didn’t do it.”
When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal. That's when I enter the box.
When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.
Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me.
By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box.
Whenever we are in the box, we have a need that is met by others’ poor behavior. And so our boxes encourage more poor behavior in others, even if that behavior makes our lives more difficult.
What I need most when I’m in the box is to feel justified. Justification is what my box eats, as it were, in order to survive.
In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.
The more people we can find to agree with our side of the story, the more justified we will feel in believing that side of the story.
Out of the box, my what-focus at work is results. In the box, by contrast, my what-focus is justification.
When you’re feeling that you want to be out of the box for someone, in that moment you’re already out. You’re feeling that way because you’re now seeing him or her as a person. In feeling that way toward that person, you’re already out of the box.
What doesn’t work in the box:
I can be both in and out of the box at the same time. In the box toward some people and out toward others.
The more we can find our way to the out-of-the-box vantage points within us, the more readily we will be able to shine light on the in-the-box justifications we are carrying.
Acting on the sense or feeling I have recovered of what I can do to help another — is the key to staying out of the box.
Being out of the box actually allows a person to be able to assign or assess responsibility with clarity, and the reason for that is because his vision is not clouded by the box.
An in-the-box organization is filled with people who are focused on themselves and on being justified. Imagine, in contrast, an organization where everyone is focused on others and on achieving results.”
The culture of blame that is so prevalent in organizations is replaced with a culture of deep responsibility-taking and accountability.
Don’t try to be perfect. Do try to be better. Don’t look for others’ boxes. Do look for your own. Don’t accuse others of being in the box. Do try to stay out of the box yourself. Don’t give up on yourself when you discover you’ve been in the box. Do keep trying. Don’t deny that you’ve been in the box when you have been. Do apologize; then just keep marching forward, trying to be more helpful to others in the future. Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right to help. Don’t worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.
the myriad ways in which people have used this book and its ideas fall within five broad areas of application: 1) applicant screening and hiring, 2) leadership and team building, 3) conflict resolution, 4) accountability transformation, and 5) personal growth and development.
It is often helpful when giving the book to another to say something like, “Here is a book that will help you to see how to deal with me when I’m really being a jerk.”
The most effective leaders lead in this single way: by holding themselves more accountable than all.