Key to excellence: Bolt prison of self-betrayal

“Leadership and Self-Deception”
The Arbinger Institite
Berret-Koehler Publishers Inc.


When I saw this book from a shelf, the first word, “leadership,” served as a magnet – as all thoughtful books on leadership.

“Self-Deception,” the word-phrase attached to Leadership, was both intriguing and puzzling. I jumped to conclusion: “Ah, this must be one of those ‘psychology’ types – speaking of leaders with illusions of grandeur, chameleon-like characters, and creatures of assiduously nurtured image of strength and virtue.”

A friend, a bibliophile, said: “This is a good book.” That was an understatement. The book has stirred a revolution – where all revolutions start: from the heart.

Once a rare while, a book comes to momentarily lead us away from the corporate world of numbers and statistics, tactics and strategies, mergers and acquisitions, skills and technologies, logistics and resources.

A book comes to remind us corporations are actually made of people – not as human resources (in the same breath that there are machines and materials) – in the deepest sense of the word.

You will say, what else is new? CEOs and human resource managers have been singing praises to people as “heroes in the corporate world.” This book asks: Do we mean it?

The question is asked, not because it is fashionable to jolt non-human resource people from their confining mindsets toward realizing the value of people – but because such question, the book says, is “fundamental to the survival of the company.”

For a book authored not by an individual but by a nameless group in the Arbinger Institute – it is refreshingly personal, warm and full of insights. The authors have wisely decided to deliver the gems of truth in a narrative. And, so much like in a gripping novel, you find yourself listening to the dialogue – even the silences. Before you know it, you are hooked.

The begins with Tom Callum, a fictional character and a two-month old executive of Zagrum, also a fictional outstanding firm. Then he meets Bud Jefferson, the executive vice president, who gives Tom and earth-shaking, self-worth shattering evaluation:

“You have a problem. The people at work know it;; your spouse knows it; your mother-in-law knows it. I bet even your neighbors know it.” And then the bombshell: “The problem is that you don’t know it.”

Only into page seven of the book, and you read this dialogue – and you’re hooked! That’s justifiably so, because at different levels, you will find yourself in Tom. Or you can identify yourself with the only three other characters in the essay narrative, who guide Tom through a journey of discovery, self-assessment, mindset liberation and transformation.

This is not a romanticized view of people in the corporate world. “Getting out of the box,” as the author puts it, is “deeper than changing behavior.” The book confronts an all-too-familiar situation where executives are non-productive and such “germ” of non-productivity infects his people. A true story of doctors – serving as carriers of a germ that led to high mortality rates a month mothers giving birth – illuminates the point, frighteningly so.

The point of the book is this: If you are in a box – you are imprisoned by your own high regard of yourself and your unsatisfactory view of others. And since you are in a box of self-deception, you don’t know that the people around you find you “not fun to work with.” And you are surprised!

Samples of interesting dialogue:

“You can’t focus on results because in the box you’re focused on yourself”
“ I saw in myself a leader who was so sure of the brilliance of his own ideas that he couldn’t allow brilliance in anyone else’s.”
“When I’m in the box, I need people to cause trouble for me – I need problems.”
“Success in an organization is a function of whether we’re in the box or not and that our influence as leaders depends on the same thing.”

This point is raised from the first pages of the book, but is enriched, expanded and deepened as you read about self-betrayal, blaming others – and ultimately in “questioning your own virtue.” It sounds religious. It sounds like repentance or realizing how unworthy you are, but the authors manage to steer clear of deep religious or philosophical talk.

The reason the book avoids the usual turn-offs – pontification and pedantry – is that these truths are delivered in a story whose plot thickens along the way and the dialog keeps you waiting with bated breath for what happens next.

The insights are expressed in confessions by a venerable former CEO, a mentor-philosopher and the current CEO, who also share their own problems. Result: A deeply human account that can have a dramatic impact on a human institution – the corporation.

If you continue to be puzzled why your people are not delivering excellence as you expect them to, this book might be useful. You can stumble upon once startling truth. As one writer puts it: We have discovered the enemy – and the enemy is us. The good thing about it is this: you don’t have to slay the enemy. You transform him – I mean yourself.