Title: Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the BoxAuthor: 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.
Labels: book reviews, nonfiction
Title: The Uncommon Reader
