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Leadership and Self-Deception uses an entertaining story everyone can relate to about a man facing challenges at work and at home to expose the fascinating ways that we blind ourselves to our true motivations and unwittingly sabotage the effectiveness of our own efforts to achieve happiness and increase happiness. We trap ourselves in a “box” of endless self-justification. The book describes strategies for “getting out of the box.”
Self-Deception and the “Box”
Whatever we might be doing—whether it’s sitting and observing others or reading the paper next to an empty seat on an airplane, for example—we see people in one of two fundamental ways:
- Straightforwardly as they are—people who are “like me” with legitimate needs & desires
- Objects
Here’s a basic litmus test: Are you interested in knowing a person’s name? If not, you’re probably not really interested in the person as a person.
How We Get In the Box—“Self-Betrayal”
“Self-Betrayal” is an act contrary to what we feel we should do for another. For example, a sleeping baby awakes and her father hears her and thinks he should tend to the baby but chooses not to, expecting the mother to take care of her.
When the father betrays himself, he begins to see the world in a way that justifies his betrayal. He becomes a victim, but he knows himself as a “hardworking, important, fair, sensitive, good dad, and good husband.” After his “Self-Betrayal,” he sees his wife as “lazy, inconsiderate, unappreciative, insensitive, a faker, a lousy mom, and a lousy wife.”
Just as the father does in the example above, when we see a self-justifying world, our view of reality becomes distorted. What really changed in the scenario above? The husband’s selfishness—and his own choice not to tend to his crying daughter—became a problem for how he viewed his wife.
So—when we betray ourselves, we enter “the box.” We become self-deceived and:
- Inflate others’ faults;
- Inflate own virtue;
- Inflate the value of things that justify our self-betrayal; and
- Blame.
Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of us, and we carry them with us. By “being in the box,” we provoke others to be in the box with us.
In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.
Here are some “Box” problems:
- Lack of commitment
- Lack of engagement
- Troublemaking
- Conflict
- Lack of motivation
- Stress
- Poor teamwork
- Backbiting & bad attitudes
- Misalignment
- Lack of trust
- Lack of accountability
- Communication problems
How We Get Out of the Box
What Doesn’t Work
- Trying to change others
- Doing my best to “cope” with others
- Leaving
- Communicating
- Implementing New Skills or Techniques
Knowing the Material
We must recognize that self-betrayal leads to self-deception and “the box.” Then, when you’re in the box, you can’t focus on results.
Your influence and success depends greatly on being “out of the box.” You get out of the box as soon as you cease resisting other people. (Sounds a lot like Humility and Jesus Christ’s approach to leadership, doesn’t it?)
Living the Material
Here’s The Arbinger’s Institute’s 8 Tips to “Get Out of the Box”:
- Don’t try to be perfect. Do try to be better.
- Don’t use the vocabulary—“the box” and so on—with people who don’t already know it. Do use the principles in your own life.
- 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—keep trying.
- Don’t deny you have 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—focus on what you can do right to help.
- Don’t worry whether others are helping you—worry whether you are helping others.
May you avoid the Futility of Folly and stay “out of the box,” as you shoot for the stars!