I came into work one day, and this book was on my desk with no note attached. I picked it up, flipped it over, and read the first quote on the back: "Fascinating, thought provoking, and insightful! This book is a wake-up call to all those who think they're good with people..."

Wait. What?! Was somebody trying to tell me something? Was this some passive-aggressive attempt at telling me I'm a bear to work with? I could actually feel my heart drop and hit my stomach. I hid the book under my purse and tried to check my email, but I just couldn't concentrate.

I peeked into my neighbor's cube and said in just-barely-above-a-whisper, "Hey, I had some book on my desk when I came in. Do you know what that's about?"

"Oh, yeah. Our boss left them for us. She wants us to read them before our group meeting in 2 weeks."

My heart sprung back up to its rightful position in my chest cavity. No secret message from a disgruntled co-worker, hooray!

But...assigned reading for work? I have a spreadsheet of 643 book titles I want to read and a stack of 20-ish books from the library all in various stages of being read and flipped through and referenced, and I'm what—just supposed to work this in?

I eventually relented though, and I'm glad I did.

Don't get me wrong—this is one of those cheesy how-to-be-a-good-leader parables. But the message is a good one, and it's one we could all stand to be reminded of from time to time. Our co-workers deserve our respect and understanding. Self-deception gets in the way of that.

Self-deception is the term they use to describe anytime you have an impulse to help another person, but you ignore the impulse and "deceive" yourself into believing you're justified for not honoring the impulse. For example, let's say it's rush hour and you're driving down the highway. Someone in the next lane has their blinker on and is desperately trying to find an open spot to get over. For a split second, you have an impulse to be nice and let them over. But you don't. We've all done that, right? Have you ever noticed that it's only after you've already decided not to let the person over that you start coming up with reasons for why you're justified in your behavior? You're in a hurry, you're gonna be late, they should have planned ahead if they really needed to get in your lane, etc. That's self-deception. It's just a handy label for something we've all experienced.

Self-deception happens everywhere—even at work. In a workplace, the consequences of rampant self-deception are more than a little twinge of guilt for not letting someone over on the highway. Self-deception can poison how you view your co-workers, and before you know it you're working against each other instead of with each other towards a common goal.

Let me give you an example. When I starting reading this book, I had a meeting at work coming up, which I was going to lead. I had asked all the attendees to send me some information so I could compile it before the meeting. A couple people cut it down to the wire, leaving me only a couple hours to compile their information before the meeting. Because of my part-time work schedule, I almost didn't get it done in time. So you can imagine that I was pretty annoyed.

Fast forward a couple weeks. Now one of the people who had given me their information late needed something from me by the end of the week. I knew that it would be unfair of me to send them the information they needed at the last minute. But I had a lot of big things going on that week, and I kept putting off what that person needed from me. And yet, it was only after I made the decision to put it off each time that I thought of what she had done to me a couple weeks prior. I felt justified in putting off what she now needed from me. Was I enhancing her efficiency at work? No. Was I enhancing my own efficiency? Not really, because I still needed to get the work done—it was just a matter of when I would do it. What about the next time I need something from her, and she remembers my behavior? Will she be compelled to help me out?

This is just a small example, but imagine this happening every day in every cubicle/office in your workplace. Because it does. Every single person is always making little decisions like this that drag down your collective efficiency and productivity. Worse than that, over time we're also letting self-deception color our opinions of our co-workers. We think they're lazy or stupid or irresponsible. I certainly started to think that person was irresponsible when they didn't send me what I needed when I needed it. Sure—sometimes we have to work with some real doozies. But when you're never satisfied with the abilities of the people who surround you at work and you're always complaining about them, is it really your co-workers who are the problem?

If we all began to honor those little impulses to help our co-workers and to work together, not only would we get a lot more done but we'd be a lot happier at work too. I don't know about you, but when I go into work and feel confident in the people who will be working alongside me, I'm in a much better mood than if I feel like I'm surrounded by lazy and/or incompetent people. ( )

Reviewed by Loi Eberle, M.A.,
Educational Consultant & Editor of Woodbury Reports http://www.strugglingteens.com/opinio...

Syndicated Columnist and Pulitzer Prize Winner, Jack Anderson, said of this book, "I can't think about my life the same again." Though I assumed this was typical book cover hype, I was still curious because some of my clients with children in the Anasazi program had mentioned the book. It's conversational style allowed for rather quick reading, even in the wee hours of the morning, so I started the first chapter. After a few pages, it began to dawn on me that indeed, the book could provide some beneficial insights, and the book deserved a thorough reading.
This book is a result of the Arbinger Institute's collaboration with the Anasazi program, a short-term emotional growth wilderness program for adolescents. Anasazi worked with the Arbinger Institute to develop the materials used in their parent workshops and with the students during the expedition. Terry Warner, a philosopher and professor at Brigham Young University, who founded the Arbinger Institute, had two children who completed the Anasazi program. The new level of communication with his children and the insights he attained as a result of that program played a pivotal role in the development of this book.
Arbinger" is the ancient French spelling of the word "harbinger" as in "foreshadowing what is to come." The institute has chosen the name Arbinger to symbolize its role as a forerunner, a "harbinger" of change. Their goal is to "break new ground in solving the age-old problem of self-deception, or what was originally called resistance." The institute asks: "How can people simultaneously 1) create their own problems, 2) be unable to see that they are creating their own problems, and yet 3) resist any attempts to help them stop creating those problems?"
According to the Arbinger Institute, this phenomenon is at the heart of much organizational failure. This management training and consulting firm and scholarly consortium has received praise from a variety of well-known corporate clients, some of whom contacted them after their children completed the Anasazi program. After seeing how the Anasazi had improved their interaction with their children, they wanted to apply these principles to their organization.
The Arbinger Institute worked with the Anasazi program to develop the book, LEADERSHIP AND SELF-DECEPTION, as a way of presenting this material. It is delivered via conversations between the book's characters, a presentation style that reduce a reader's defensiveness, since as we all know, it's easier to see a behavior in others than it is to see it in one's self. When self-deception is put in the context of "other people doing these things," readers can be more receptive to what the book elucidates. By focusing on the character's experiences, perhaps an insight might possibly leak through - "aha, I guess I might be doing this too!"
The book portrays the efforts of the leadership team of the fictitious "Zagum" company to teach a new team member about their unique management style. The team members use examples of their own family conflicts to demonstrate how the new member has been "in the box" with his co-workers.
Even though most of us value honesty and think we are being honest in our relationships, the book effectively clarifies how we get "in the box" with other people. What does this mean? The book explains that when a person is "in the box," he or she is operating under the assumption that his or her reaction to another person is honest and sensible. Actually, however, the person in the box is unconsciously distorting the other person's motivations and actions in order to defend his or her "in the box" viewpoint. The distortion and justification, of course, is done unconsciously. The person "in the box" is convinced that his or her actions and responses are perfectly justified.
According to the book, sometimes people "collude" to keep each other in the box by subtly encouraging each other's behavior to conform to their expectations. They are influenced by each other's cues, and behave in the expected way, thus validating and vindicating the other's negative viewpoint. The characters in the book describe how they often have done this with their own children.
The leader of the "Zagum Company" describes how he learned to break through the long maintained and painful communication barriers between himself and his son. This moving passage is based on the actual experiences of Arbinger Institute's founder when his son completed the Anasazi program. Parents can't help but hope that a similar experience might occur with their own child.
So how does a person "get in the box?" The book says, through self-betrayal, that is, by responding to a person or an organization in a way that is "contrary to how one should." Reacting inappropriately to a person or organization causes the "self-betrayer" to "be in the box" and causes him or her to unconsciously justify the reason for not responding in the desired way. This in turn causes the person in the box to create a distorted perception of the other person or organization. Of course the very nature of distortion is such that people don't realize their own distorted viewpoint.
How does one get "out of the box?" The book is pretty clear on what DOESN'T work: "trying to change others; doing my best to cope with others; leaving; communicating, implementing new skills or techniques and changing my behavior." Oh, oh, that doesn't leave too many options. Instead, the book leaves the reader slightly off-guard and humbled: "question your own virtue." Question how your distorted view of the situation is affecting how you are responding. Question your willingness to see a person in a way that vindicates your self-betrayal, rather than attempting to understand who the person really is.
The book ends with advice about how to "live the material." For example, it says, "don't use the vocabulary -- "the box" and so on - with people who don't already know it." Certainly the book could be considered vague and theoretical, perhaps even far- fetched and easy to denigrate. It is it difficult to explain the book's ideas to others without resorting to personal anecdotes. This makes sense, because the book is designed, I suspect, as a tool to be used to experience personal insight, rather than to be used to convey specific rules and or techniques.
The whole reason to "get out of the box" is to be able to see "people…as people" which the book suggests is the key to helping organizations operate more effectively. This might seem to be an extreme and perhaps simplistic statement. Yet it is often pointed out that many problems in organizations are usually not due to a lack of expertise, rather, problems arise when experts attempt to work together.
"The thing that divides fathers from sons, husbands from wives, neighbors from neighbors - is the same thing that divides coworkers from coworkers as well. Companies fail for the same reason families do…both are organizations of people." LEADERSHIP AND SELF-DECEPTION ends with the advice that until we "get out of the box" and the distortions it causes, "we don't know who we work and live with."

I can’t decide how to start the review of Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box. I could say this was an easy read which makes it accessible to every reader. I could say that this is one of the most useful books I’ve read in years (including my college years). I could say that this is a powerful book that will change its readers. However, I find it best to say that a friend lent me “Leadership and Self Deception” and it was so good that I bought a copy after reading the book. I even helped sell a few copies as I insisted a few of my friends buy it and read it.

I generally dislike leadership books; I don’t have the wall space to write down 12 reminders for leaders or 15 steps to effective leadership. “Leadership and Self Deception” at the end of the story there were a few key ideas to keep in mind but they all boiled down to the simple ideas “getting out of the box” (view people as people) and “self deception.” Even though the key ideas are entombed in the title the book is still a must read. The book chips away at leadership excuses by effectively challenging and building leadership. It pulls leadership out of the personality, quality, skill and talent realm and places it squarely into the accessible realm reaction and choices.

“Leadership and Self Deception” is written as humorous story which softens the body blows it often inflects to the reader’s ego. It follows the story of Tom Callum, a new executive at Zagrum who meets with Zagrum’s executive vice president Bud Jefferson. The book follows the course of the meeting as Bud shares with Tom about Leadership and Self Deception and being in the box and how to be out of the box.

There aren’t ground breaking principles in this book but the simplicity and accessibility force the reader to acknowledge and desire to act upon the principles. ( )

Told in a story form, this book is deceptively easy to read - but the themes offer a lot to think about, and are certainly confronting to absorb! I challenge you to apply these principles into your life, and they will revolutionise your relationships. ( )

For too long, the issue of self-deception has been the realm of deep-thinking philosophers, academics, and scholars working on the central questions of the human sciences. The public remains generally unaware of the issue. That would be fine except that self-deception is so pervasive it touches every aspect of life. ""Touches"" is perhaps too gentle a word to describe its influence. Self-deception actually determines one's experience in every aspect of life. The extent to which it does that, and in particular the extent to which it is the central issue in leadership, is the subject of this book.
To give you an idea of what's at stake, consider the following analogy. An infant is learning to crawl. She begins by pushing herself backward around the house. Backing herself around, she gets lodged beneath the furniture. There she thrashes about -- crying and banging her little heard against the sides and undersides of the pieces. She is stuck and hates it. So she does the only thing she can think of to get herself out -- she pushes even harder, which only worsens her problem. She's more stuck than ever.
If this infant could talk, she would blame the furniture for her troubles. She, after all, is doing everything she can think of. The problem couldn't be hers.But of course, the problem is hers, even though she can't see it. While it's true she's doing everything she can think of, the problem is precisely that she can't see how she's the problem.Having the problem she has, nothing she can think of will be a solution.
Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true cause of problems, and once blind, all the ""solutions"" we can think of will actually make matters worse. That's why self-deception is so central to leadership -- because leadership is about making matters better. To the extent we are self-deceived, our leadership is undermined at every turn -- and not because of the furniture.
We have written this book to educate people about this most central of problems -- a problem that has been the exclusive terrain of scholars for far too long. But this book is about more than the problem. There is a solution to self-deception as well.
Our experience in teaching about self-deception and its solution is that people find this knowledge liberating. It sharpens vision, reduces feelings of conflict, enlivens the desire for teamwork, redoubles accountability, magnifies the capacity to achieve results, and deepens satisfaction and happiness. We hope that this introduction to the self-deception problem and solution will give people new leverage in all of these areas. In organizations as varied as commercial ventures, neighbourhoods, and families, what is needed most is people not just with influence but with influence for good.

This is one of the most powerful books that I have ever read. It literally changed the way I look at myself and others in this world. ( )

http://www.somestrangeideas.com/wordp... ( )