Lessons from “Leadership and Self-Deception”

The best-written self-help book I’ve ever read.

While most self-help books are written as advice and a list of facts with an occasional anecdote, this book is written as a compelling narrative. The book starts with the first-person perspective of a new employee in the early days of his employment at a fictional company named Zagrum. The story and the characters make it engaging.

I have listed here the most high-level points the book makes but I would highly recommend reading it to actually digest it well.

Self-Deception

Self-deception refers to the tendency to distort or deny reality, often to avoid uncomfortable truths, emotions, or responsibilities. It means downplaying or justifying our own flaws, mistakes, or behaviours. At the same time, we shift blame onto others.

The Box Analogy

An aspect of Self-Deception is similar to being in a box and not understanding the actual problem. Being in the box refers to a state of mind where individuals become self-deceived, leading to ineffective leadership and relationships.

Acting on any kind of solution in that case does nothing or aggravates the problem. Like a toddler stuck under a sofa but continuously crawling backwards in an attempt to free itself.

• Understand the goals of your project and communicate with the people involved. Brute force hard work won’t matter if you’re not aligned with the vision and goals.
• People are incredibly perceptive of your intentions. They can recognize a sincere attitude behind your poorly articulated message just as well as they can recognize an insincere attitude behind your well-articulated message.
• We often don’t treat people like people when they need empathy the most. This even happens when they are in a bad situation which we were just moments before.
• Don’t blame, try to understand.
• Many companies that don’t know what their problem is, are stuck inside the box.
• The fictional company in the book claimed that their secret to success was seeing people as people.
• People primarily respond not to what we do but to how we’re being.
• You’ll be in the box most of the time.

Self-betrayal

1. An act contrary to what I feel I should do for another is called an act of “self-betrayal”.
2. When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.

Self-betrayal Deep Dive

• It is as simple as not doing what you’re supposed to do. Something that you know is right to do. For example, doing a chore to help your partner.
• When not doing the right thing we often justify it in our mind by thinking that the other person is bad and undeserving of our hard work. And we think of ourselves as the victim. When we do that we are inflating the other’s faults and at the same time, inflating our own virtue.
• If you find yourself blaming someone that could be a sign of self-betrayl.
• When you betray yourself that’s when you enter the box of self-deception.
• Many people-problems are caused because of self-betrayal. So, the solution to self-betrayal problems is the solution to the people-problems.

(Collusion) is when two or more people are mutually in their boxes towards each other.

What doesn’t work inside the box

1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
3. Leaving (I take the box with me)
4. Communicating (I will just communicate the blame)
5. Implementing new skills and techniques

Helpful skills and techniques aren’t very helpful when done inside the box. They just provide people with more sophisticated ways to blame.

Almost any behaviour can be done inside the box and out of the box, so no mere behaviour can get you out. To leave the box, we need to honour people as people and recognise that their needs, hopes and worries are as legitimate as our own. Continuing to honour them will continue to let us stay out of the box.

Knowing vs Living the Material

Towards the end of the training, the protagonist declares that he is ready but his boss corrects him saying that knowing the material is not the same as living it.

Knowing the Material

• Self-betrayal leads to self-deception and “the box.”
• When you’re in the box, you can’t focus on results.
• Your influence and success will depend on being out of the box.
• You get out of the box as you cease resisting other people.

Living the Material

• Don’t try to be perfect. Do try to be better.
• Don’t use the vocabulary — “the box,” and so on — with people who don’t already know it. Do use the principles in your own life.
• Don’t look for other’s boxes. Do look for your own.
• Don't accuse others of being in the box. Dox try to stay out of the box yourself.
• Don’t give up on yourself when you discover you’ve been in the box. Do keep trying.
• Don’t deny that you’ve been in the box when you have been. Do apologize: then just keep marching forward, trying to be more helpful in the future.
• Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right.
• Don’t worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.