Are You 'In the Box'?

One of my favorite books: Leadership and Self Deception by The Arbinger Institute. Published in 2000, it became a word-of-mouth phenomenon — translated into over 30 languages, forming the core of a consulting practice that spans individuals, police departments, and some of the world’s largest corporations.

Written as a fable, the book tells the story of Tom, a new senior hire at a company called Zagrum, meeting with his new boss, Bud. Zagrum has built its culture around a single principle: treat people as people, not as objects.

The problem, Bud explains, is that most people spend most of their time treating others as objects — and don’t even realize they’re doing it. They’re in a state of self-deception. Arbinger calls this “being in the box.”

When we’re in the box, we rationalize our behavior by: inflating the faults of others, minimizing our own faults, inflating our own virtue, and blaming. If we see ourselves as hard-working and productive, it becomes easy to start thinking that others aren’t trying hard enough — which makes it easy to avoid helping them, and easy to blame them when things go wrong.

When we blame others from inside our box, we invite them to enter their own boxes and blame us back. The cycle accelerates. Confirmation bias kicks in. We end up colluding to perpetuate mutual mistrust and mutual self-justification — while believing we’re the reasonable party.

A colleague once put it this way: in most organizations, people are doing a second job that no one is paying for. They’re covering their weaknesses, managing impressions of themselves, hiding uncertainties, showing themselves to their best advantage. It’s the single largest drain on organizational resources that most leaders never see.

How do you get out of the box? For that, you’ll need to read the book. It might change how you see everything.