Overall, stellar insights into leadership and professional development. However, the simple ideas of this classic go beyond the board room. The heart of the message is a call to being more present to those in front of us. It is a simple and systemic way of stopping yourself in the tracks of being too wrapped up in yourself and choosing to SEE the person in front of you. To see their humanity.

For a culture much too often consumed with ourselves and drenched in individualism, this book sheds needed light on how we can be, need to be, and should be better. What I time to ponder such questions.

Interested in hearing others’ thoughts on how this could be better integrated (not only in professional settings), but also into parenting + culture of grade schools + high schools. I for one think it could be ~transformational~.

Not rating 5, because I personally thought it moved a bit too slowly. I found myself frustrated with how long it took for the main character to grasp the concept... but maybe I need to read it again because that’s probably a thought from inside the box...

تعلّمت فكرتين رهيبتين

1- فكرة التواطؤ:
تصوّرك عن الآخر سيجعلك تعامله بطريقة تعزّز تصوّره عنك
تصوّره هذا يجعله يعاملك بطريقة تعزّز تصوّرك عنه

وهذا ما يعقّد أزمة العلاقات ويسيّرها باتجاه واحد
إمّا إلى الهاوية وإمّا إلى الرضى، مالذي يحدّد ذلك؟
تصوّرك عنه، هو ما يصنع الدائرة المغلقة أو يكسرها


2- مثلّث كسر التواطؤ:
لتحلّ مشكلتك مع الآخر، غيّر تصوّرك عنه
وابن علاقتك الشخصيّة معه بعيدًا عن المشكلة
هذا أفضل من سؤاله مباشرة عن المشكلة والإنصات له
والإنصات أفضل من تعليمه ماينبغي أن تكون عليه الأمور
وتعليمه أهون من أن تعطيه التوجيهات المباشرة


فكرتان تستحقّان قراءة الكتاب

لكنّي لا أحبّ قالب القصص

Excellent extended business-oriented parable on what happens when you ignore the instinctual feeling to help those around you. You either honor that feeling or you betray it. What happens when you betray it? It ain’t good according to the book. It’s self-betrayal that sets off a chain of events that leaves you feeling justified and others looking contemptible. You wind up calling that your character and living in a warped version of reality with warped results in all your actions. Worse still you’re probably doing this all the time. It has a dated Sunday School feel to it for a book published in 2002 but I won't knock points for that. It all rang true. Highly recommended.

I literally, just threw this in the garbage. I have never done that with a book but seriously...there are so many far better books on this topic out there.

I get why companies want their employees to read this, but it is clearly written for people who are natural assholes. I feel like they tried to make such a simple concept more complex than it needs to be. If I hear “in the box” one more time I’m gonna lose it. Didn’t like the narrative structure.

The protagonist enters a conference room to meet his boss. They talk. We learn the protagonist is a new manager at the company. We learn he has marriage problems and recently wronged an employee. He and the boss talk. They break for lunch. End of part 1.

The protagonist talks with his secretary and finds out that she actually dislikes him. He walks to the employee and apologises. He meets a female manager on the lawn. Together, they walk back to the conference room where they meet the boss. The three talk until the evening. The protagonist drives home. End of part 2.

The next morning. The protagonist goes back to the same conference room. He meets the firm's patriarch and his boss. We learn that he had a good evening with his wife and son. The patriarch shares a story. The three men talk. End of book.

This is the entire storyline.

I did not enjoy "Leadership and self-deception". I think the simple teaching on seeing-other-humans-as-humans (-instead-of-objects) and helping others rather than being self-centered could have been summed up in one page. But it was blown up into a plot-less novel with four characters, three of whom are men, with only the protagonist having any character development at all. 160 pages of monologues given by men in a conference room, packaged as a "business novel".

If you think other people are the problem and you find yourself intrigued by the idea that you might look into yourself as the root cause of the conflict on your life, maybe this book will be insightful to you.

Interesting perspective on what blocks people from performing at their highest. Need to think about this. Nice parallels with the TOC thinking processes - particularly the idea that People Are Good.

I read this book for a graduate-level class, and though the concepts it attempted to address are worthy of engagement, I was unimpressed and frustrated by the juvenile presentation. Through a story with awful writing and a painstakingly unaware main character, it over-complicates themes of emotional intelligence, interpersonal relationships within the workplace, and conflict resolution that are, perhaps, more well-explored by their audience than the authors presumed. It felt like I could see “the point” from a million miles away and was screaming at the characters to “just get there already.” I can pick up any other psychology or spirituality book written from an academic standpoint and learn in 2 chapters what this book stretched out for 200 pages.

Light read with an interesting paradigm shift regarding how we deal with people and how the same behavior can have two different outcomes based on our paradigm.

The principles can positively affect our relations, be it at work, with our friends or our partners.

Holy cannoli. Such an incredible book! I’ve said in the past that if you read one self-improvement book in your life it should be Russ Harris’s “The Happiness Trap” or Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Well friends, “Leadership and Self-Deception” equals these.

It’s written as a narrative. This guy, Tom, recently hired at a successful company learns that what makes the company great is their commitment to “getting and staying out of the box.” Through a two day training with his manager, Tom learns what “the box” is, how we get in it, and how to get out.

If that sounds cheesy, it is. But while the story is a bit dopey, the principles taught are completely life changing. I’d love to chat more about it if any of my friends are interested (I even made a lesson plan for how to go about teaching the principles in the book - slightly modified). In brief though, here is what “Leadership and Self-Deception” is all about.

- When we act contrary to what we feel we should do for others, we betray ourselves.
- By betraying ourselves we immediately and automatically begin to search for justification for our behavior. We magnify the faults of the other person and inflate our own virtues. This creates a fun house mirror effect that distorts our view of reality. This is what being in the box means.
- When we’re in the box we care more about finding evidence for our world view than actually solving our problems.
- When I am in the box towards someone, I encourage them to get in the box towards me. Me condemnation of them triggers their defensive response and they begin to magnify my faults. This defensive behavior reinforces my negative belief towards them and we begin “colluding,” or descending a negative spiral of blame and self-justification.
- One of the most pernicious parts of being in the box is we usually don’t even realize that we’re in it. The blame and justification following self-betrayal is so automatic, it flies under the radar unless we’re looking for it.
- While communicating with others, learning people skills, trying to cope better with the situation, and other similar strategies are valiant - they won’t be able to get us out of the box. This is because these things generally change our behaviors but not our underlying attitudes and beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world.
- To get out of the box we need to recognize people as people instead of as objects. This happens the moment we recognize their humanity. Staying out of the box indefinitely is impossible but we can practice recognizing when we’re in the box and quickly get out of it when that happens.

This is super stripped down and simplified. Let’s chat if your more interested or you can just read the book. It’s a lot more powerful than my weak synopsis! The book is only 170 pages so you can read it in a couple days. I’d highly, highly recommend it!

While it may seem obvious that we should see people as human beings, this book makes the point that we often don't see people that way as often as we may think and that as a result our lives and the lives of those around us may be all the more difficult. I am not sure I can say that this book has changed my life as others (and the Arbinger Institute repeatedly) claim, it has given me something to think about.

I did find the story to be overly convenient and manufactured. I would say that is my main criticism. It makes it a bit patronizing but I think if you can see past that it does have an important message. Even if you find it to be an obvious one, sometimes it is worthwhile to just be reminded.

Extremely simplistic. Boils down to "don't be a jerk to others and they won't be a jerk to you" except told through unbelievable and pointless anecdotes, taking up an entire book when a chapter would have sufficed.

One of the worst management books I have read.