‘Leadership & Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box’

The Arbinger Institute’s book “Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting out of the Box” was recommended to me.

This is a great book that demonstrates how we may deceive ourselves and create a skewed reality in which we blame others for difficulties we have caused or situations we find ourselves in by focusing on ourselves and treating people as things rather than individuals.

It also demonstrates that our subsequent action toward them, in which we attempt to solve their problem, exacerbates the problem, making the situation worse.

We need to always treat people as people and consider their needs in order to better understand their motivations and create a more accurate reality on which to base our actions.

When I started to read I found myself understanding some difficult relationships I have had, both professional and personal, and could see how I had contributed to the difficulty, whereas before I would have laid 100% of the blame at the feet of the other person.

One of the challenges is that we often don’t see where the real problems lie and if we cannot see the problem how can we fix it?

Not only does the book give us some very useful insights into personal relationships, but it also gives some great tips on how to spot when we are in blame mode and how to deactivate it.

This I an excellent book and I would fully recommend it, not only will it help you at work, but more importantly at home. I know it will definitely help me, I might not be able to fix all the problems but I will have the tools to spot my contribution and how to minimize it.

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