Leadership and Self-Deception
Chapter 22: Leadership out of the Box
"When we blame, we blame because of ourselves, not because of others."
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"In order to see what I needed to do," he said, rising from his chair, "you need to understand what the nature of my self-betrayal was." He began to pace the length of the table. "There were many self-betrayals, I suppose, but I realized as I pondered the implications of what I learned in Arizona that I’d betrayed myself at work in one major way. And what we’ve discovered in the years since is that almost everyone at work betrays himself or herself in this same foundational way. So everything we do here is designed to help our people avoid that self-betrayal and stay out of the box. Our success in that endeavor has been the key to our success in the marketplace."
"So what is it?" I asked.
"Well, let me ask you this," Lou said. "What’s the purpose of our efforts at work?"
"To achieve results together," I answered.
Lou stopped. "Excellent," he said, apparently impressed.
"Actually, Bud talked about that yesterday," I said, slightly sheepish.
"Oh, did you already talk about the foundational workplace self-betrayal?" he asked, looking at Bud.
"No. We touched on how in the box we can’t truly focus on results because we’re so busy focusing on ourselves," Bud said, "but we didn’t get specific about it."
"Okay," Lou responded. "Well then, Tom, you’ve been with us now for what–a month or so?"
"Yes, just over a month."
"Tell me about how you came to join Zagrum."
I then related to Lou and Bud my career highlights at Tetrix, my longtime admiration of Zagrum, and the details of my interviewing process.
"Tell me how you felt when you were offered the job."
"Oh, I was ecstatic."
"The day before you started, did you have good feelings about your soon-to-be co-workers?" Lou asked.
"Oh, sure," I answered. "I was excited to get started."
"Did you feel that you wanted to be helpful to them?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"And as you thought about what you would do at Zagrum and how you would be on the job, what was your vision?"
"Well, I saw myself working hard, doing the best I could to help Zagrum succeed," I answered.
"Okay," Lou said, "so what you’re saying is that before you started, you had a sense that you should do your best to help Zagrum and the people who are part of it succeed–or as you said earlier, achieve results."
"Yes," I answered.
Lou walked over to the board. "Is it okay with you, Bud," he said, pointing toward the diagram of Bud’s baby-crying story, "if I change this a little?"
"Absolutely. Please, go ahead," Bud said.
Lou then erased and added to the diagram. He backed away, and this is what he had written:
Feeling:
"Do my best to help the company and the people within it
achieve results"
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"Notice, Tom," he said. "Most people when they start a job have about the same feelings about it that you did. They’re grateful for the employment and for the opportunity. They want to do their best–for their company and for the people in it.
"But interview those same people a year later," he continued, "and their feelings are usually very different. Their feelings toward many of their co-workers frequently resemble the feelings Bud had toward Nancy in the story he told. And you’ll often find that people who formerly were committed, engaged, motivated, looking forward to working as a team, and so on, now have problems in many of those areas. And who do you suppose they think caused those problems?"
"Everyone else in the company," I answered. "The boss, co-workers, the people who report to them, even the company, for that matter."
"Yes. But now we know better," he said. "When we blame, we blame because of ourselves, not because of others."
"But is that always the case?" I asked. "I mean, when I was at Tetrix, my boss was terrible. He created all kinds of trouble. And now I see why–he was deep in the box. He mistreated everyone in the division."
"Yes," Lou said, "and as hard as we work at this here at Zagrum, you’re going to run into people who mistreat you here as well. But look at this diagram," he said, pointing at the board. "Is this worker blaming his co-workers because of what they’ve done to him, whatever that might be? Or another way to put it is this: Do we get in the box because other people are in their boxes? Is that what causes us to get in the box?"
The answer, of course, was no. "No, we get in the box through self-betrayal. I understand that. But I guess my question is, Isn’t it possible to blame without being in the box?"
Lou looked at me intently. "Do you have a specific example that we could think about?"
"Well, sure," I said, "I’m still thinking about my old boss at Tetrix. I guess I’ve been blaming him for a long time. But my point is, he really is a jerk. He’s a big problem."
"Well, let’s think about that," Lou said. "Do you suppose it’s possible to recognize how someone might be a big problem without being in the box and blaming them?"
"Yeah, I guess so," I answered. "But if I’m blaming, am I necessarily in the box?"
"Well, you might think about it this way," Lou continued. Does your blame help the other person get better?"
I suddenly felt quite exposed, as if a lie was about to become public knowledge.
"No, it probably wouldn’t" I said.
"Probably?" Lou asked.
"Well, no. I mean, no, my blame wouldn’t help the other person get better."
"In fact," Lou continued, "won’t blaming provoke that person to be even worse?"
"Well, yes, I guess it would," I said.
"Well then, is that blame serving some other useful purpose toward helping the company and those in it achieve results? Is there some out-of-the-box purpose that is served by blame?"
I didn’t know what to say. The truth was there was no out-of-the-box purpose for my blame. I knew that. I’d been in the box toward Chuck for years. My question to Lou was just a way for me to feel justified in my blame. But my need for justification exposed my self-betrayal. Lou had brought me face-to-face with my lie.
"I guess not," I said.
Bud spoke up. "I know what you’re thinking about, Tom. You’ve had the misfortune of working with someone who was often in the box. And it was a tough experience. But notice, in that kind of a situation, it’s quite easy for me to get in the box too because the justification is so easy–the other guy’s a jerk! But remember, once I get in the box in response, I actually need the other guy to keep being a jerk so that I’ll remain justified in blaming him for being a jerk. And I don’t need to do anything more than get in the box toward him to keep inviting him to be that way. My blame keeps inviting the very thing I’m blaming him for. Because in the box, I need problems.
"Isn’t it far better," he continued, "to be able to recognize others’ boxes without blaming them for being in the box? After all, I know what it’s like to be in a box because I’m there some of the time too. Out of the box I understand what it’s like to be in the box. And since when I’m out of the box I neither need nor provoke others to be jerks, I can actually ease, rather than exacerbate, tough situations.
"There’s another lesson here, of course," he continued. "You can see how damaging an in-the-box leader can be. He or she makes it all too easy for others to revert to their boxes as well. The lesson, then, is that you need to be a different kind of leader. That’s your obligation as a leader. When you’re in the box, people follow you, if at all, only through force or threat of force. But that’s not leadership. That’s coercion. The leaders people choose to follow are the leaders who are out of the box. Just look back on your life and you’ll see that that’s so."
Chuck Staehli’s face melted from my mind and I saw Amos Page, my first boss at Tetrix. I would have done anything for Amos. He was tough, demanding, and about as out of the box as I could imagine a person being. His enthusiasm for his work and the industry set the course for my whole career. It had been a long time since I’d seen Amos. I made a mental note to look him up and see how he was doing.
"So your success as a leader, Tom, depends on being free of self-betrayal. Only then do you invite others to be free of self-betrayal themselves. Only then are you creating leaders yourself–co-workers who people will respond to, trust, and want to work with. You owe it to your people to be out of the box for them. You owe it to Zagrum to be out of the box for them."
Bud stood up. "Let me give you an example of the kind of leader we need you to be," he said. "My first project as a new attorney was to become an expert in California mobile home law. The results of my research would be crucial to one of the firm’s largest clients, for that client’s expansion plans required the acquisition of large areas of land then occupied by mobile home parks.
"My supervising attorney on the project was a fourth-year attorney named Anita Carlo. As a fourth-year, she was three years away from partnership consideration. First-year attorneys can afford a few mistakes, but fourth-year attorneys don’t have that luxury. By then they’re supposed to be seasoned, trustworthy, and competent. Any mistakes at that point in one’s law firm life generally count as heavy negatives when it’s time for the partnership vote.
"Well, I threw myself into the project. Over the period of a week or so, I probably became the world’s foremost expert on California mobile home law. Yippee, right? Well, I laid everything out in a hefty memo. Anita and the lead partner on the project were happy because the result turned out to be good for our client. Everything was good. I was a hero.
"About two weeks later, Anita and I were working together in her office. Almost in passing she said, ‘Oh, by the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you this: Did you check the pocket parts in all the books you used in your mobile home research?’"
I wasn’t familiar with the term Bud had just used. "Pocket parts?" I asked.
"Yeah–have you ever been in a law library?"
"Yes."
"Then you know how thick legal books are," he said.
"Uh-huh."
"Well, thick legal books present a printing challenge that is solved by what are called ‘pocket parts.’ Let me explain. Legal books are in constant need of revision to reflect the latest developments in the law. In order to avoid frequent reprints of very expensive books, most legal reference books include a pocket in the back where monthly updates are stored."
"So Anita was wondering whether you had checked the most up-to-date versions of the law when you made your analysis," I said.
"Exactly. And when she asked the question, I wanted to run and hide because in my exuberance, I never thought to check the pockets.
"Well, we ran up to the firm’s law library and began pulling all the books I’d used. And guess what? The law had changed. Not just in a marginal way but in a way that changed everything. I had the client running headlong into a public relations and legal nightmare."
"You’re kidding," I said.
"Afraid not. Anita and I went back down to her office to give the bad news to Jerry, the lead partner on the project. He was located in a different city, so we had to call him. Now think about it, Tom," he said. "If you were Anita Carlo, under scrutiny for partnership, what would you have told Jerry?"
"Oh, that this first-year guy messed up or something like that," I said. "I would’ve found some way to make sure that he knew it wasn’t my fault."
"Me too. But that’s not what she did. She said, ‘Jerry, you remember that expansion analysis? Well, I made a mistake on it. It turns out that the law has just recently changed, and I missed it. Our expansion strategy is wrong.’
"I was dumfounded listening to her. I was the one who’d messed up, not Anita, but she–with much at stake–was taking responsibility for the error. Not even one comment in her conversation pointed to me.
"‘What do you mean you made a mistake? I asked her after she hung up. ‘I was the one who didn’t check the pocket parts.’ This was her response: ‘It’s true you should’ve checked them. But I’m your first supervisor, and a number of times during the process I thought that I should remind you to check the pockets, but I never got around to asking until today. If I had asked when I felt I should’ve, none of this ever would’ve happened. So you made a mistake, yes. But so did I.’"
"Now think about it," Bud continued. "Could Anita have blamed me?"
"Absolutely."
"And she would’ve been justified in blaming me, wouldn’t she?" Bud asked. "Because, after all, I really did make a mistake. I was blameworthy."
"Yeah, I guess that’s right," I said.
"But notice," Bud said with feeling, "she didn’t need to blame me–even though I made a mistake–because she herself wasn’t in the box. Out of the box she had no need for justification."
Bud paused for a moment and sat back down. "And here’s the interesting thing: Do you suppose that by claiming responsibility for her mistake Anita made me feel less or more responsible for my own?"
"Oh, more," I said.
"That’s right," Bud agreed. "A hundred times more. By refusing to look for justification for her relatively little mistake, she invited me to take responsibility for my own major one. From that moment on, I would’ve gone through a brick wall for Anita Carlo.
"But think how that would’ve changed," he continued, "if she had blamed me. How do you suppose I would’ve reacted had Anita blamed me when she talked to Jerry?"
"Well, I don’t know what you might’ve done exactly, but you probably would’ve started to find some weaknesses in her that make her hard to work for, for one thing."
"Exactly. And both Anita and I would’ve then been focused on ourselves instead of what we needed to focus on at that point more than ever–the result for the client."
"And that," Lou said, joining back in, "is exactly what I realized my problem was as I sat in Arizona learning this material. I had failed, in all kinds of ways, to do my best to help Zagrum and its employees achieve results. In other words," he said, pointing to the board, "I’d betrayed my sense of what I needed to do for others in the venture. And in doing that, I buried myself in the box. I wasn’t focused on results at all; I was just focused on myself. And as a result of that self-betrayal, I blamed others for everything. That picture there," he said, pointing again at the diagram, "that was me. I saw everyone in the company as problems and saw myself as the victim of their incompetence.
"But in that moment of realization–a moment that one would expect would be dark and depressing–in that moment I felt the first happiness and hope about my company that I’d had in months. Still very unsure of where this would end up, I had an overwhelming feeling of something–a first thing–that I needed to do. Something that I had to do if I was to move forward out of the box.
"I had to go see Kate."
Leadership
and Self-Deception
© 2000 The Arbinger Institute
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