Getting out of the Box
Getting out of the Box
From a book every manager should read.
Photo by Erda Estremera on Unsplash
What does it mean to “Getting out of the box”? An expression widely used to step out of our thinking. But what sounds easy at first isn’t that easy at all. We often don’t even realise we have a problem since we are stuck in our own experience. When we are stuck in believing the only truth is in our thinking we are in the box - deceiving ourselves. In other words, we are not hearing what other people try to tell us since we resist anything that attacks our view. Not to mention the damage our reactions can cause to our relationships, career and our life.
The bad news is that every one of us falls victim to self-deception. Furthermore, according to The Arbinger Institut “…self-deception is the most common and most damaging of all problems in organisations.” Concluding that if we were to minimize self-deception we would receive better results.
The good news, however, is that we are not in the box all the time and that there are ways that help us to get out of our closed-up thinking. The book titled “Leadership and Self-Deception” by The Arbinger Institut is a great resource to start identifying times when you are resisting other viewpoints instead of being completely relaxed when someone presents you with a different opinion from your own. Furthermore, this book leads you through a story “…about a man facing challenges on the job and his family, the authors expose the fascinating ways that we blind ourselves to our true motivations and unwittingly sabotage the effectiveness of our own efforts to achieve success and increase happiness.”**
It uncovers how we get in the box and out of it again. It takes some practice, but if you are committed to being the best manager you can be and to getting effective and lasting results, you may want to start by checking the mindset you are operating from.
I recommend these next steps:
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Find and read the book “Leadership and Self-Deception” by The Arbinger Institut (Link to Amazon).
Reach out for a chat about the topic by booking 30 minutes on Zoom with me. Here is the link Book a meeting with Sandy
*p17, INSTITUTE, A. R. B. I. N. G. E. R. (2018). Leadership and self-deception: Getting out of the box. Berrett-koehler.
** Book description, INSTITUTE, A. R. B. I. N. G. E. R. (2018). Leadership and self-deception: Getting out of the box. Berrett-koehler.