Arbinger Institute Quotes

There is a question I have learned to ask myself when I am feeling bothered about others: am I holding myself to the same standard I am demanding of them?

...no conflict can be solved so long as all parties are convinced they are right. Solution is possible only when at least one party begins to consider how he might be wrong.

Seeing an equal person as an inferior object is an act of violence

Because if you are the mess, you can clean it. Improvement doesn't depend on others.

...when I betray myself, others' faults become immediately inflated in my heart and mind. I begin to 'horribilize' others. That is, I begin to make them out to be worse than they really are. And I do this because the worse they are, the more justified I feel.

Most wars between individuals are of the 'cold' rather than the 'hot' variety---lingering resentment, for example, grudges long held, resources clutched rather than shared, help not offered. These are the acts of war that most threaten our homes and workplaces.

The more sure I am that I'm right, the more likely I will actually be mistaken. My need to be right makes it more likely that I will be wrong! Likewise, the more sure I am that I am mistreated, the more likely I am to miss ways that I am mistreating others myself. My need for justification obscures the truth.

In every moment...we choose to see others either as people like ourselves or as objects. They either count like we do or they don't.

Bruises heal more quickly than emotional scars do.

A solution to the inner war solves the outer war as well.

As painful as it is to receive contempt from another, it is more debilitating by far to be filled with contempt for another.

...whenever i dehumanize another, I necessarily dehumanize all that is human---including myself.

always remember that it is progress, not perfection, you should be looking for.

Have you ever been in a conflict with someone who thought he was wrong. If you are not wrong, then you will be willing to consider how you might be mistaken.

So if we are going to find lasting solutions to difficult conflicts or external wars we find ourselves in, we first need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes toward others. If we can't put an end to the violence within us, there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without.

People whose hearts are at war toward others can't consider others' objections and challenges enough to be able to find a way through them.

If we have deep problems, it's because we are failing at the deepest part of the solution. And when we fail at this deepest level, we invite our own failure.

Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make wise and helpful decisions.

My disability was my justification! It was my excuse for failing to engage with the world.

Most problems in life are not solved merely by correction.

But like many who are lonely, I was more preoccupied with others than were those who lived to socialize...Everyone I hated was always with me, even when I was alone. They had to be, for I had to remember what and why I hated in order to remind myself to stay away from them.

If you see people of a particular race or culture as objects, your view of them is racist, whatever your color or lack of color or you power or lack of power.

Whenever we are in the box, we have a need that is met by others’ poor behavior. And so our boxes encourage more poor behavior in others, even if that behavior makes our lives more difficult.

When you begin to see others as people,’ Ben told me, ‘issues related to race, ethnicity, religion, and so on begin to look and feel different. You end up seeing people who have hopes, dreams, fears, and even justifications that resemble your own.

the way we can know if we’ve betrayed ourselves is by whether we are still desiring to be helpful.

But none of that is possible,” he continued, “if my heart is at war. A heart at war needs enemies to justify its warring. It needs enemies and mistreatment more than it wants peace.

If we don’t measure the impact of our efforts on the objectives of those we are serving, we will remain blind to important ways we need to adjust and will end up not serving others well.

If we are poor learners, our teaching will be ineffective.

... if I'm sure I'm right, there is little hope of seeing where I am failing. So I keep trying the same old things-

They’re all examples of self-betrayal — times when I had a sense of something I should do for others but didn’t do it.

What must it be like to be the son of someone for whom you can never be good enough?

We provoke each other to do more of what we say we don’t like about the other!

no problem could be solved if individuals were not willing to address how they themselves were part of the problem.

mindset drives and shapes all that we do—how we engage with others and how we behave in every moment and situation.

As usual, there aren’t enough last minutes.

The more people we can find to agree with our side of the story, the more justified we will feel in believing that side of the story.

Seeing an equal person as an inferior object is an act of violence, Lou. It hurts as much as a punch to the face. In fact, in many ways it hurts more. Bruises heal more quickly than emotional scars do.

Which brings us back to your question, Tom. In your prior job, when you were thinking that your old boss was a real jerk, were you trying to help him, or was this judgment of him really a way of just helping yourself?

The deepest way in which we are right or wrong,” he continued, “is in our way of being toward others. I can be right on the surface—in my behavior or positions—while being entirely mistaken beneath, in my way of being.

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. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So — when I betray myself, I enter the box.

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 others’ boxes. Do look for your own. Don’t accuse others of being in the box. Do try to stay out of the box yourself. Don’t give up on yourself when you

In the way we regard our children, our spouses, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers, we choose to see others either as people like ourselves or as objects.They either count like we do or they don't. In the former case we regard them as we regard ourselves, we say our hearts are at peace toward them. In the latter case, since we systematically view them as inferior, we say our hearts are at war.

Developing an outward mindset is a matter of learning to see beyond ourselves. Our hope for you, the reader, is that this book will make such mindset change completely tangible to you and that you will achieve the results at work and at home that only an outward mindset can bring.

The bigger problem was that I couldn’t see that I had a problem.” Bud paused for a moment, and then, leaning toward me, he said in a lower, even more earnest tone, “There is no solution to the problem of lack of commitment, for example, without a solution to the bigger problem — the problem that I can’t see that I’m not committed.

Don’t misunderstand,” Yusuf added. “Despite our best efforts, we may find that some battles are unavoidable. Some around us will still choose war. May we in those cases remember what we learned from Saladin: that while certain outward battles may need to be fought, we can nevertheless fight them with hearts that are at peace. “And may we remember the deeper lesson as well: that your and my and the world’s hoped-for outward peace depends most fully not on the peace we seek without but on the peace we establish within.

Kate’s story raises for me an astonishing point, Tom. And that is, when I’m in the box, I need people to cause trouble for me — I actually need problems.

A choice to betray myself,” he said, “is a choice to go to war.

the biggest lever for change is not a change in self-belief but a fundamental change in the way one sees and regards one’s connections with and obligations to others.

organizational improvement, even turnaround, is less a matter of getting the wrong people off the bus than a matter of helping people see. It is a matter of changing mindset.

while behaviors drive results, behaviors themselves are informed and shaped by one’s mindset.

Seeing people as people rather than as objects enables better thinking because such thinking is done in response to the truth: others really are people and not objects.

At the end of the day, my leadership effectiveness is measured not by what I am able to accomplish, but by what those whom I lead are able to accomplish.

when I try to impose my ideas on others and thereby refuse to allow them to think, I end up getting in the way more than I end up being helpful.

The energy-draining, time-wasting, silo-creating effect of this justification seeking is one of the most debilitating of organizational problems.

When people focus on themselves rather than on their impact, lots of activity and effort get wasted on the wrong things.

the simple idea that behaviors drive results.

The bigger problem was that I couldn’t see that I had a problem.

What doesn’t work in the box 1. Trying to change others 2. Doing my best to “cope” with others 3. Leaving 4. Communicating 5. Implementing new skills or techniques

we and our enemies are perfect for each other. Each of us gives the other reason never to have to change.

And that is, when I’m in the box, I need people to cause trouble for me — I actually need problems.

think I’d prefer tomorrow morning.

What are you afraid of, Lou?” “Afraid? I’m not afraid of anything,” Lou

I don’t feel the same now. Which means that he hasn’t caused me to feel how I’ve felt. I’ve always had the choice.

7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.

no conflict can be solved so long as all parties are convinced they are right. Solution is possible only when at least one party begins to consider how he might be wrong.

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 to others in the future. Don’t focus on what others are doing wrong. Do focus on what you can do right to help. Don’t worry whether others are helping you. Do worry whether you are helping others.

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.

Merely knowing the material doesn’t get you out of the box. Living it does. And we’re not living it if we’re using it to diagnose others. Rather, we’re living it when we’re using it to learn how we can be more helpful to others—even

The lady who offered us her seat, on the other hand, saw others and the situation clearly, without bias. She saw others as they were, as people like herself, with similar needs and desires. She saw straightforwardly. She was out of the box.

That’s right. The truth is, her faults seemed relevant to whether I should help her only after I failed to help her. I focused on and inflated her faults when I needed to feel justified for mine. After I betrayed myself, the truth was just the opposite of what I thought it was.

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. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted.

In summary, then, the myriad ways in which people have used this book and its ideas fall within five broad areas of application: (1) applicant screening and hiring, (2) leadership and team building, (3) conflict resolution, (4) accountability transformation, and (5) personal growth and development.

As we’ve been talking about, no matter what we’re doing on the outside, people respond primarily to how we’re feeling about them on the inside. And how we’re feeling about them depends on whether we’re in or out of the box concerning them. Let me illustrate that point further with a couple of examples.

There’s another lesson here, of course,” he said. “You can see how damaging an in-the-box leader can be. He or she makes it all too easy for others to revert to their boxes as well. The lesson, then, is that you need to be a different kind of leader. That’s your obligation as a leader. When you’re in the box, people follow you, if at all, only through force or threat of force. But that’s not leadership. That’s coercion. The leaders that people choose to follow are the leaders who are out of the box. Just look back on your life and you’ll see that that’s so.” Chuck Staehli’s face melted from my mind and

Self-deception is like this. It blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make

With an inward mindset, on the other hand, I become self-focused and see others not as people with their own needs, objectives, and challenges but as objects to help me with mine. Those that can help me, I see as vehicles. Those that make things more difficult for me, I see as obstacles. Those whose help wouldn’t matter become irrelevant to me.

appreciate the time and effort you have devoted to this. You have been pondering your lives in bold ways. I hope you will be both troubled and inspired as a result: troubled because you know that the box is always just a choice away but hopeful for the very same reason because freedom from the box is also just a choice away—a choice that is available to us in every moment.

This book is about the difference between a self-focused inward mindset and an others-inclusive outward mindset. It will help you become more outward in your work, your leadership, and your life. It will guide you in building more innovative and collaborative teams and organizations. And it will help you see why you like many of the people you do and what you can do to become more like them.

Another characteristic of conflicts such as these,” he said, gesturing toward the board, “is the propensity to demonize others. One way we do this is by lumping others into lifeless categories—bigoted whites, for example, lazy blacks, crass Americans, arrogant Europeans, violent Arabs, manipulative Jews, and so on. When we do this, we make masses of unknown people into objects and many of them into our enemies.

That night, I would have told you that the thing I wanted most was for Bryan to be responsible, to keep his word, to be trustworthy. But when he actually was responsible, when he did what he said he’d do, when he proved himself trustworthy, was I happy?” “No.” I shook my head in wonder at the thought. “You probably still would have been irritated, huh? You might have even gotten after him for squealing the tires.” “I’m ashamed to admit that I did something just as perverse,” Kate replied. “After he came in the door — having made it in time, mind you — rather than thanking him, or congratulating him, or acknowledging him, I welcomed him with a curt, ‘You sure cut it close, didn’t you?’ ” Kate sat down. “Notice — even when he was responsible, I couldn’t let him be responsible.” She paused. “I still needed him to be wrong.

So, for example, if I had been raised in a critical or demanding environment, it might have been easier for me, relatively speaking, to find refuge in worse-than or need-to-be-seen-as justifications. Those who were raised in affluent or sanctimonious environments, on the other hand, may naturally gravitate to better-than and I-deserve justifications, and so on. Need-to-be-seen-as boxes might easily arise in such circumstances as well. “But the key point, and the point that is the same for all of us, is that we all grab for justification, however we can get it. Because grabbing for justification is something we do, we can undo it. Whether we find justification in how we are worse or in how we are better, we can each find our way to a place where we have no need for justification at all. We can find our way to peace—deep, lasting, authentic peace—even when war is breaking out around us.

Kate leaned toward me. “What I need most when I’m in the box is to feel justified. Justification is what my box eats, as it were, in order to survive. And if I’d spent my whole night, and really a lot longer even than that, blaming my son, what did I need from my son in order to feel ‘justified,’ to feel ‘right’?” “You needed him to be wrong,” I said slowly, a knot forming in my stomach. “In order to be justified in blaming him, you needed him to be blame worthy.

First of all,” he began, “we’ve talked about two ways of being: one with the heart at war, where we see others as objects, and the other with the heart at peace, where we see others as people. And you’ll remember that we learned that we can do almost any behavior, whether hard, soft, or in between, in either of these ways. Here are two questions for you then: If we can do almost any outward behavior with our hearts either at peace or at war, why should we care which way we are being? Does it matter?” “Yes,” Carol answered. “It definitely matters.

another important function of the learning level of the pyramid is that it keeps reminding us that we might be mistaken in our views and opinions. Maybe an objective I’ve been insisting upon at work is unwise, for example. Or maybe a strategy I’ve been taking with my child is hurtful. Or maybe the lesson structure we had planned isn’t working, and so on. The learning level of the pyramid keeps inviting us toward humility. It reminds us that the person or group we wish would change may not be the only one who needs to change! It continually invites us to hone our views and opinions.

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. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.

Then you understand how we live insecurely when we’re in the box, desperate to show that we’re justified—that we’re thoughtful, for example, or worthy or noble. It can feel pretty overwhelming always having to demonstrate our virtue. In fact, when we’re feeling overwhelmed, it generally isn’t our obligation to others but our in-the-box desperation to prove something about ourselves that we find overwhelming. If you look back on your life, I think you’ll find that that’s the case—you’ve probably felt overwhelmed, over-obligated, and overburdened far more often in the box than out. To begin with, you might compare your night last night with the nights that came before.

Oh, that this first-year guy messed up or something like that,” I said. “I would’ve found some way to make sure that he knew it wasn’t my fault.” “Me too. But that’s not what she did. She said, ‘Jerry, you remember that expansion analysis? Well, I made a mistake on it. It turns out that the law has just recently changed, and I missed it. Our expansion strategy is wrong.’ “I was dumfounded listening to her. I was the one who’d messed up, not Anita, but she—with much at stake—was taking responsibility for the error. Not even one comment in her conversation pointed to me. “ ‘What do you mean you made a mistake?’ I asked her after she hung up. ‘I was the one who didn’t check the pocket parts.’ This was her response: ‘It’s true you should’ve checked them. But I’m your first supervisor, and a number of times during the process I thought that I should remind you to check the pockets, but I never got around to asking until today. If I had asked when I felt I should’ve, none of this ever would have happened. So you made a mistake, yes. But so did I.

It’s my proof that others are as blameworthy as I’ve claimed them to be — and that I’m as innocent as I claim myself to be. The behavior I complain about is the very behavior that justifies me.” Bud placed both hands on the table and leaned toward me. “So simply by being in the box,” he said slowly and earnestly, “I provoke in others the very behavior I say I hate in them. And they then provoke in me the very behavior they say they hate in me.” Bud turned and added another sentence to the principles about self-betrayal: “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. 3. When I see the world in a self-justifying way, my view of reality becomes distorted. 4. So—when I betray myself, I enter the box. 5. Over time, certain boxes become characteristic of me, and I carry them with me. 6. By being in the box, I provoke others to be in the box. 7. In the box, we invite mutual mistreatment and obtain mutual justification. We collude in giving each other reason to stay in the box.

Ultimately, my effectiveness at each level of the pyramid depends on the deepest level of the pyramid— my way of being. “I can put all the effort I want into trying to build my relationships,” Yusuf said, “but if I’m in the box while I’m doing it, it won’t help much. If I’m in the box while I’m trying to learn, I’ll only end up hearing what I want to hear. And if I’m in the box while I’m trying to teach, I’ll invite resistance in all who listen.” Yusuf looked around at the group. “My effectiveness in everything above the lowest level of the pyramid depends on the lowest level. My question for you is why?” Everyone looked at the pyramid. “You might try looking at the Way-of-Being Diagram from yesterday,” Yusuf said. “I get it,” Lou said after a moment. “What?” Yusuf asked. “What are you seeing?” “Well, the Way-of-Being Diagram tells us that almost any outward behavior can be done in either of two ways—with a heart that’s at war or a heart that’s at peace.” “Yes,” Yusuf agreed. “And what does that have to do with the Influence Pyramid?” “Everything above the lowest level of the pyramid is a behavior,” Lou answered. “Exactly,” Yusuf said. “So anything I do to build relationships, to learn, to teach, or to correct can be done either in the box or out. And as we learned yesterday from the Collusion Diagram, when I act from within the box, I invite resistance. Although there are two ways to invade Jerusalem, only one of those ways invites cooperation. The other sows the seeds of its own failure. So while the pyramid tells us where to look and what kinds of things to do in order to invite change in others, this last lesson reminds us that it cannot be faked. The pyramid keeps helping me to remember that I might be the problem and giving me hints of how I might begin to become part of a solution. A culture of change can never be created by behavioral strategy alone. Peace—whether at home, work, or between peoples—is invited only when an intelligent outward strategy is married to a peaceful inward one. “This is why we have spent most of our time together working to improve ourselves at this deepest level. If we don’t get our hearts right, our strategies won’t much matter. Once we get our hearts right, however, outward strategies matter a lot. The virtue of the pyramid is that it reminds us of the essential foundation—change in ourselves—while also revealing a behavioral strategy for inviting change in others. It reminds us to get out of the box ourselves at the same time that it tells us how to invite others to get out as well.

That’s usually the case. Identify someone with a problem, and you’ll be identifying someone who resists the suggestion that he has one. That’s self-deception — the inability to see that one has a problem.

Even if they do all the ‘right’ things interpersonally — even if they apply all the latest skills and techniques to their communications and tasks—it won’t matter. People ultimately resent them and their tactics. And so they end up failing as leaders — failing because they provoke people to resist them.

Think about it: if I’m sure I’m right, there is little hope of seeing where I am failing. So I keep trying the same old things—the same lectures, for example, and the same punishments. And I keep getting the same outcomes: others with problems. On the one hand, I hate it, but on the other hand, I get my justification, which is what I most want when I’m in the box. My need for justification blinds me to all kinds of possibilities. Even to the obvious ones.

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; a leader who felt he was so ‘enlightened’ that he needed to see workers negatively in order to prove his enlightenment; a leader so driven to be the best that he made sure no one else could be as good as he was.

All of these responses convinced me all the more of the incompetence of the people in the company, so I responded by issuing even more careful instructions, developing even more policies and procedures, and so on. Everyone took all that to be further evidence of my disrespect for them and resisted me all the more. And so on, round and round—each of us inviting the other to be in the box, and in so doing, providing each other with mutual justification for staying there. Collusion was everywhere. We were a mess.

The issue, of course, is not the mountain, whether that mountain is the dishes or the lawn or the title; or whether, for that matter, the mountain is Mount Moriah itself. No, the issue lies beneath the mountain in the realities in our hearts that make these mountains our battlegrounds.

What I need most when I’m in the box is to feel justified. Justification is what my box eats, as it were, in order to survive. And if I’d spent my whole night, and really a lot longer even than that, blaming my son, what did I need from my son in order to feel ‘justified,’ to feel ‘right’?

Over time, as we betray ourselves, we come to see ourselves in various self-justifying ways. We end up carrying these self-justifying images with us into new situations, and to the extent that we do, we enter new situations already in the box. We don’t see people straightforwardly, as people. Rather, we see them in terms of the self-justifying images we’ve created. If people act in ways that challenge the claim made by a self-justifying image, we see them as threats. If they reinforce the claim made by a self-justifying image, we see them as allies. If they fail to matter to a self-justifying image, we see them as unimportant. Whichever way we see them, they’re just objects to us. We’re already in the box.

That’s the way it seems to me too,” agreed Lou. “In the box, whether I’m a skilled communicator or not, I end up communicating my box—and that’s the problem.

Helpful skills and techniques aren’t very helpful if they’re done in the box. They just provide people with more-sophisticated ways to blame.

In the moment we cease resisting others, we’re out of the box—liberated from self-justifying thoughts and feelings. This is why the way out of the box is always right before our eyes—because the people we’re resisting are right before our eyes. We can stop betraying ourselves toward them—we can stop resisting the call of their humanity upon us.