Review: Leadership and Self Deception

Title: Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box
Author: The Arbinger Institute
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: A management training and consulting firm uses a parable to explore the idea of self-deception and how it impacts a business.

Review: 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.

Kelly Becomes a Real Woman (Or Tries)

For over 11 years, I worked in the R&D department of my company. (That's "Research & Development" for all you non-techie types out there.)

I wore jeans every day except when I was interviewing candidates. Flip-flops every day of the summer as long as my toenail polish was presentable. No more make-up than it took to cover up the dark circles under my eyes. And I was surrounded by a bunch of male engineers whose own dressing habits, in general, made me look high maintenance. (I said in general—you know I didn't mean you!)

But since June 30th, I've been in my new position as Sustainability Specialist. That position just so happens to fall under the Marketing department at my company. And can I just say that these people know not only how to dress but how to ACCESSORIZE.

I do my best with my brightly colored shirts and my black-pants-that-go-with-everything, but every time I go in the office and look around at my new co-workers, I feel insufficient. Like I'm not a real woman. I suddenly become painfully aware of the fact that those staple black pants are a little too short and are a little too tight around the last 5 pounds of pregnancy weight that are firmly entrenched in my middle. I remember that I should have put hand lotion on before I left the house because DAYum, how did my hands get so dry when it's as humid as a sauna outside?

And I realize that my neck is naked. My wrists are naked. My earlobes are naked. The only piece of jewelry I wear is my wedding ring.

I know that accessorizing involves more than just jewelry, but a girl's gotta start somewhere. So where is a "Sustainability Specialist" supposed to buy jewelry? Certainly not from a jewelry chain store, right?

I just don't have time to hit all the local crafts fairs in Austin looking for locally made jewelry that looks professional. Because if I'm being honest here, a lot of the stuff at those crafts fairs isn't something I see myself wearing to work.

After a few weeks of ever-so-casually keeping my hands in front of my naked neck every time I had to meet with a well-accessorized co-worker, I had an epiphany. I remembered Etsy. It's a web site where you can buy and sell handmade items. When I first came across it, all I thought to myself was "Gee, I wish I could make something because that'd be cool to support yourself that way." I didn't envision myself actually shopping for items on Etsy.

But Etsy has a "Shop Local" feature. You just enter where you live, and Etsy gives you a list of all the most recent handmade items for sale in your area. Perfect! Locally made is pretty dang sustainable in my book.

Unfortunately, you can't search within those local results (as far as I can tell), so I started scrolling and scrolling to find jewelry. And then it dawned on me that I know someone in Austin who makes awesome jewelry. Duh. I blame mother brain. This kid must be sucking my brain dry of all those fatty acids you need to stay smart.

So uh, I guess that's my long-winded way of saying: Check out MetalsGirl. These photos are a little taste of the sweet-ass jewelry she makes.

Review: Sign with Your Baby

Title: Sign with Your Baby: How to Communicate with Infants before They Can Speak
Author: Joseph Garcia
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 3/5
Summary: Researcher Joseph Garcia reviews the fundamentals of communicating with your baby using a sign language based on American Sign Language (ASL).

Review: I chose to read this instead of Baby Signs because I figured as long as we're teaching Abby a second language, it might as well be an actual language (American Sign Language) that she can use later on in life too.

A major benefit of this book is that the text to read is less than 50 pages, and that's nothing to shake a stick at when you're a parent with little uninterrupted reading time. The rest of the book is a glossary of signs. However, I have decided to read Baby Signs after all, even though we still plan to use the signs from Dr. Garcia's book.

There are a couple reasons for my change of heart. I started reading Baby Minds: Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love, which is by the same authors of Baby Signs. I really appreciated how the authors did a great job of backing up every major point with specific research studies. In Sign with Your Baby, the emphasis is more on anecdotes from parents and Dr. Garcia's own experience.

Because I was reading both books at the same time, I also found myself preferring the writing style of Baby Minds to Dr. Garcia's writing style. There's nothing wrong with it per se—I just thought the Baby Minds authors were a little more engaging and professional. (The book design might be playing into this impression too, as Sign with Your Baby doesn't exactly have a slick book design.)

But what really sealed the deal for me is that in his book, Dr. Garcia actually mentions and recommends Baby Signs. So that made me realize I didn't have to go with one or the other but that I could learn from both. Duh, Kelly.

Review: The Audacity of Hope

Title: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Author: Barack Obama
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4/5
Summary: Senator Obama lays out his vision for the country and how we can begin to heal the wounds of partisanship to solve pressing problems like poverty, unemployment, lack of access to quality education, and a society that for all its "family values" rhetoric doesn't support families in meaningful ways.

Review: Before I go any further, I have a quick public service announcement: Regardless of which candidate strikes your fancy, don't forget to register to vote before your state's registration deadline. A country where half the citizens don't participate in the process of choosing its leader is not a healthy country!

With that said, I loved this book. It took a couple chapters to get to the juicy stuff of specific ideas for solutions to our nation's problems. But looking back on the beginning of the book, I realize how important it was for Obama to start off talking about values and the common threads that pull Americans together—no matter whether they consider themselves blue, red, purple, or indifferent to politics.

And if nothing else, reading this book cemented my resolve to not only vote for Obama but to donate to the campaign and volunteer for him as well. Obama is a leader who can find common ground and lead us toward solutions to the problems that are tearing us apart as a country.

Obama is by no means my political kindred spirit or anything. I will probably always be more progressive than any Presidential candidate with a real shot at the White House. But Obama shares the values I hold most dear. We feel the call to take care of our fellow humans when we can, and not just when we live in the same house or the same neighborhood. We try not to devolve into "us and them" when thinking and speaking about those who don't share our exact political views. We realize that luck plays a large part in providing the opportunities you have for a good education, a good job, and a healthy life.

I was lucky to have been born into a middle-class family who could afford to live in a neighborhood that had excellent schools. Not to mention I was born with white skin that sadly, makes a lot of things in this country more accessible. Did I work hard to achieve what I have in life—a loving husband, a healthy daughter, a great job, a beautiful home? Sure. But does that mean that someone who cleans homes like mine for a living and has three kids at home and another job at night and lives in a tiny apartment on the "wrong" side of town works any less hard than I do? I know in my bones they work harder, much harder. So why am I more deserving of the things I have? I'm not. Mainly, I'm lucky.

We are stronger as a nation—as a world—when we all have the opportunity to live a healthy, happy life. Obama recognizes that and has great ideas for providing that opportunity to more people, and that's a candidate I can get behind.

Finally, I'd like to share a few quotes that rang true to me:

• "...the Ownership Society doesn't even try to spread the risks and rewards of the new economy among all Americans. Instead, it simply magnifies the uneven risks and rewards of today's winner-take-all economy. If you are healthy or wealthy or just plain lucky, then you will become more so. If you are poor or sick or catch a bad break, you will have nobody to look to for help. That's not a recipe for sustained economic growth or the maintenance of a strong American middle class. It's certainly not a recipe for social cohesion. It runs counter to those values that say we have a stake in each other's success. It's not who we are as a people."
  
  
• "So let's be clear. The rich in America have little to complain about. Between 1971 and 2001, while the median wage and salary income of the average worker showed literally no gain, the income of the top hundredth of a percent went up almost 500 percent. The distribution of wealth is even more skewed, and levels of inequality are now higher than at any time since the Gilded Age. These trends were already at work throughout the nineties. Clinton's tax policies simply slowed them down a bit. Bush's tax cuts made them words.
  
  I point out these facts not—as Republican talking points would have it—to stir up class envy. I admire many Americans of great wealth and don't begrudge their success in the least. I know that many if not most have earned it through hard work, building businesses and creating jobs and providing value to their customers. I simply believe that those of us who have benefited most from this new economy can best afford to shoulder the obligation of ensuring every American child has a chance for that same success. And perhaps I possess a certain Midwestern sensibility that I inherited from my mother and her parents...: that at a certain point one has enough, that you can derive as much pleasure from a Picasso hanging in a museum as from one that's hanging in your den, that you can get an awfully good meal in a restaurant for less than twenty dollars, and that once your drapes cost more than the average American's yearly salary, then you can afford to pay a bit more in taxes.
  
  More than anything, it is that sense—that despite great differences in wealth, we rise and fall together—that we can't afford to lose. As the pace of change accelerates, with some rising and many falling, that sense of common kinship becomes harder to maintain. ...we have always been in a constant balancing act between self-interest and community, markets and democracy, the concentration of wealth and power and the opening up of opportunity. We've lost that balance in Washington, I think. With all of us scrambling to raise money for campaigns, with unions weakened and the press distracted and lobbyists for the powerful pressing their full advantage, there are few countervailing voices to remind us of who we are and where we've come from, and to affirm our bonds with one another."
  
  
• On his daughter Sasha's birthday party, where she sat in the middle of a parachute: "On the count of three, Sasha was hoisted up into the air and back down again, then up for a second time, and then for a third. And each time she rose above the billowing sail, she laughed and laughed with a look of pure joy.
  
  I wonder if Sasha will remember that moment when she is grown. Probably not; it seems as if I can retrieve only the barest fragments of memory from when I was five. But I suspect that the happiness she felt on that parachute registers permanently in her; that such moments accumulate and embed themselves in a child's character, becoming a part of their soul. Sometimes, when I listen to [my wife] Michelle talk about her father, I hear the echo of such joy in her, the love and respect that [her father] Frasier Robinson earned not through fame or spectacular deeds but through small, daily, ordinary acts—a love he earned by being there. And I ask myself whether my daughters will be able to speak of me in that same way."

So if you like what you've read here, check out Obama's site and learn more about his vision for this country.

August Photos Posted

In August, Abby turned 6 months old. To celebrate, we gave her solid food for the first time. Obviously, she was a big fan.