This book is a wake-up call to all those who think they're good with people. “Leadership and Self-deception” is a valuable book that explains how we deceive ourselves, and how that deception eventually impacts our personal and professional relationships. Self-deception takes place when we blame everyone else for the problems that are going on. It is one of the key factors that determine outcomes in business and personal life. The book calls self-deception as being “in a Box”, a situation wherein we focus only on ourselves. We may be both, “in a box” and “out of the box” at the same time, depending on the people we interact with.
Most of us value honesty and think we are being honest in our relationships. This book effectively shows how we get "in the box" in our personal and professional relationships. What does this mean? It means that when we are “in the box”; we assume that our actions and reactions to the other person are both honest and justified. However, we are unconsciously distorting the other person's motivations and actions in order to defend our "in the box" viewpoint. This radical concept made me uncomfortable and forced me to question some of my self-righteous moments.
All workplace activities are focused on achieving results for the company. However, we can't completely focus on company results if we are "in the box"(there we are more focused on ourselves). Our own results and achievements may take precedence over everything and we may not focus on what's best for the organization. An "in the box" person usually as has one or more of the following symptoms such as lack of commitment, conflict, stress, poor teamwork, lack of trust, lack of accountability and communication issues.
To get out of the box, we should do our best to help others succeed and achieve results (personally and professionally). We must stop treating people as objects to meet our own selfish needs. The books explains why solutions such as trying to change others, coping with others, leaving organizations, communication solutions, implementing new skills or techniques and changing one’s behavior are only superficial solutions. In reality, we must question our own virtue to solve this problem. We must ask ourselves about how our distorted view of the situation started. How our view has affected our judgment and how our responses have been. Doing so will help us identify our areas of self betrayal. Success as a leader depends on continuously identifying and rectifying our habit of self-betrayal and attempting to be “out of the box” as often as possible.
This book focuses on how Tom, a new executive is molded into the unique culture at “Zagum”. It’s a culture that focuses on the awareness of self-deception and individual interactions between people. The company believes that all these things determine the outcome in business and personal life. Self-deception almost destroyed the personal and professional life of Lou, the company founder. He learned to break through the long maintained and painful communication barriers between himself and his son during the Anasazi program, a short-term emotional growth wilderness program for adolescents. This made Lou understand how he was also part of the problem. He adopted their learning and successfully turned around both, his decimated company and his relationship with his estranged son and family.
The book explains how we never know everything. Ignaz, a doctor in the mid-1800s couldn’t figure out why so many patients in his ward were dying. Even after trying almost everything, he failed to change the situation. The concept of germs was not heard of at that time. Many of his doctors researched on dead bodies and then examined patients without washing their hands. This simple difference between his ward and the others made him realize that the true problem was about hand washing and germs. The death rates dropped drastically after that. A lack of knowledge of a problem made it difficult to bring about change.
Instinctively, Tom had dealt harshly with a coworker who committed a serious mistake. This news flows thought the company and reaches Bud (senior management). Bud takes this opportunity to start explaining the company’s culture using a radical, yet simple approach on relationships. He explains that the way we treat coworkers, friends, family, random people, etc determines whether we are inside or outside the box. Once people get “in a box” they think that their reaction to others is honest and justified. When in the box, we view these people as objects, nuisances, or problems, not as people and put our needs and desires before others. We unconsciously and consistently distort our motivations and actions to defend our point of view. Bud uses two examples to explain this “in the box” concept. In the first a person on an aircraft tries to avoid others from taking the free seat beside him. This fills the man with negativity (in the Box) towards his fellow passengers as he sees them as nuisances, as pests who were there to make him as uncomfortable as possible. In the other example (out of the box situation), a woman helps an unknown passenger by voluntarily coming over and offering her seat to clear the confusion. She didn’t have to help, but she did. In this case the woman passenger did not have any negative feeling towards the fellow passenger. The difference between the two reactions shows how we treat others. We deceive our self when we look at others as objects and without compassion.
A person gets in the box through self-betrayal. This happens when people respond contrary to how one should. Self-deception makes the individual to unconsciously justify the reason for not responding in the desired way. This causes the person in the box to create a distorted perception of the other person or organization. The very nature of distortion is such that people don't realize their own distorted viewpoint. Self-betrayal has seven characteristics:
1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of "self-betrayal."
2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.
3. When I see a self-justifying world, my view of reality becomes distorted.
4. So - when I betray myself, I enter the box.
5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me.
6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box.
In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box. We justify our self-deception by using some of the following techniques
1. Inflate others' faults.
2. Inflate our own virtue.
3. Inflate the value of the things that justify my self-betrayal.
4. Blame.
There are many quick fixes as mentioned below that people try to do to when they are inside the box. However, Lou explains why they are ineffective. This eliminates almost all the possible solutions and leaves the reader confused. However there is hope and we can get out of the box and it’s in the next section.
1. trying to change others
2. Doing my best to cope with others;
3. Leaving
4. Communicating
5. implementing new skills or techniques
6. Changing my behavior
The book solution leaves the reader slightly off-guard, confused and humbled. Lou’s solution is to question our own virtue. To question ourselves and find when we distorted our views and how our distorted view of the situation is affecting our response. To question our willingness to see a person in a way that vindicates our self-betrayal, rather than attempting to understand who the person really is. Tom’s and Lou’s example shows how their situations changed when got “out of the box”. The book “LEADERSHIP AND SELF-DECEPTION” ends with the advice that until we "get out of the box" and the remove the distortions it causes, we won’t really know who we work and live with.
Staying “out of the box” is an important take away from this book and leaders should strive to achieve that. Leaders have power and control over people. People reporting to their superiors may or may not be able to tell the leader about the harmful effects of their actions. Team performance is optimal when the team works towards a common goal as a unit. Self-deception is can break a team or organization into pieces. The effect is more severe when the leader has a problem with self-deception. The book also mentions that when a leader is “in a box” everyone else’s ideas and views fade into the background. Many problems in organizations are usually not due to a lack of expertise; rather, problems due to the conflicting relationships between different employees in an organization.
The tricky bit is that people can be both in and out of it at the same time. This blurs the problem and makes it hard to detect. Hence, as leaders we must constantly evaluate ourselves and aim to be out of the box as often as possible.
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