Title: Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box
Author: The Arbinger Institute
Format: Hardcover, 175pp.
ISBN: 1576750949
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub
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Leadership and Self-Deception is another one of those parable stories we love to read (and write - if you haven't read, Teacher's Pet or Judge for Yourself, click here) It's the story of Tom, who has just started working as a senior manager for Zagrum Company.
"You have a problem," Bud, the executive vice president tells Tom. "A problem you are going to have to solve if you are going to make it at Zagrum." The problem is self-deception, the inability to see that one has a problem.
The subtitle of the book is "Getting Out of the Box". Bud explains to Tom there are two ways of looking at every set of behaviors: in or out of "the box", the term for being self-deceived (versus "thinking outside the box" - different use of the box). In the box, we see ourselves and others as mere objects - headcount, "that woman," "little people", "worker bees". Out of the box, we see others as real people with names, families and interesting stories.
L&S-D does not promote group-hugs or singing "Kumbaya". Zagrum Company is the industry leader (we never do learn what industry), and the characters are hard-nosed professionals who do not tolerate sub-par performance. But the way Zagrum employees accomplish their mission is revolutionary: they work with, disagree with and reprimand one another from "out of the box" - they focus on the humanity of their colleagues, rather than their own self-interest.
In many ways, L&S-D does not promote anything new. Even though we have heard many of the lessons before, we don't always really learn them. It makes a compelling business case and reminds us how much we contribute to the situations we don't like. As Tom says:
Once I get in the box, I need the other guy to keep being a jerk so that I'll remain justified in blaming him for being a jerk. And since when I'm out of the box I neither need nor provide others to be jerks, I can actually ease, rather than exacerbate, tough situations.
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