Outward Mindset Arbinger Quotes

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

the simple idea that behaviors drive results.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

every person who is burning time and energy seeking justification is doing so at the expense of the contribution he or she could be making to the overall results of the company.

When we average the results across industries, people rate their colleagues at 4.6 on the continuum and themselves at 6.8. Think about what this means: on average, all employees in an organization think they are nearly 50 percent better—more collaborative and less blameworthy—than their coworkers. So what happens when problems arise? Those who think they are 7s look around and wait for all the 4s to change. The trouble is, all those 4s think they, too, are 7s! So everyone waits—and blames. This is a manifestation of the problem of self-deception that we wrote about in Leadership and Self-Deception.

Remember, the principle to apply is, as far as I am concerned, the problem is me. I am the place to start. Others’ responses will depend mostly on what they see in me. The most important move is for me to make the most important move.

Ask yourself the following questions: Have I (or we) thought this through with an outward mindset? Do I understand the needs, objectives, and challenges of those involved? Have I adjusted my efforts in light of those issues? And have I been holding myself accountable for my impact on these people? Have you considered what mindset-level changes might be necessary in addition to behavioral changes?

I learned that when people came up with an idea, it was important to allow that idea to grow and be implemented. As long as an idea didn’t take us backward or cause harm, the organization benefited more when the team members were allowed to implement their idea and discover how it could be improved than when I just tried to get them to implement my idea. I was constantly surprised by how many times I discovered that others’ ideas turned out to be much better than mine and by the increased energy people brought to their work when they were empowered to implement their own ideas.

my leadership effectiveness is measured not by what I am able to accomplish but by what those whom I lead are able to accomplish.

The most important move consists of my putting down my resistance and beginning to act in the way I want the other person to act.

Would our organizations be better off if all of us were to turn outward in our work with each other? Yes. But this preferred state can be reached only if some are willing to change even when others do not—and to sustain the change whether or not others reciprocate.

being able to operate with an outward mindset when others do not is a critically important ability. It is the most important move.

In fact, what obscures vision and exposes people to more risk is not an outward mindset, which stays fully alive to and aware of others, but an inward one, which turns its attention away from others while simultaneously provoking resistance.

A related reason why people resist making the most important move is that they think an outward mindset will make them soft when hard behavior is required. But this is a misunderstanding. As we’ve said, an outward mindset doesn’t make people soft; it just makes them open, curious, and aware. Similarly, an inward mindset doesn’t make people hard. In fact, people whose mindsets are inward often engage in behaviors that are softer than would actually be helpful.

Clarifying the collective result enables individuals and teams to improve their contributions within the organization without waiting for directives from those who have a broader view of the organization’s interconnected parts. With this understanding, people don’t require someone to align their roles relative to others; they can do this themselves. Imagine an organization of self-aligning individuals and teams who take responsibility for implementing the outward-mindset pattern, constantly adjusting what they do to ensure that their impact contributes to the accomplishment of the collective result. Every individual can decide to be this kind of contributor.

The biggest lever for change is not a change merely in self-belief but a fundamental change in the way people see and regard their connections and obligations to others.

As you will discover, the mutual impact people have on one another turns on whether they carry a self-focused inward mindset or an others-inclusive outward mindset. Understanding the dynamics of this mutual reciprocity and what to do to improve it is the focus of this book.

As the mindset changes, so does the behavior, without having to prescribe the change. And where certain behaviors still need to be stipulated, the suggestions won’t be systematically resisted. For these reasons, mindset change facilitates sustainable behavior change.

Given that no one is born into this world without others, that one’s ability to think requires language learned from others, and that one’s cognitive and emotional experiences are shaped by thoughts and feelings about others, thinkers began to argue that individualistic approaches miss the mark. What is fundamental is not an isolated self but rather a kind of brute fact that just is—the reality of being in the world with others. Who we are is who we are with others.

Martin Buber, who studied the reality of humankind’s connectedness, observed that there are basically two ways of being with others: we can be in the world seeing others as they are, as people, or we can be in the world seeing others as they are not, as objects.

person whose mindset is outward sees others as people. Seeing them as people, he realizes that others matter like he himself matters. And because they do, their needs, objectives, and challenges will matter to him as well. As a result, his objectives and behaviors will take others into account. In a work context, a person with an outward mindset will hold himself accountable to accomplish his own objectives and to do so in a way that makes it easier, not harder, for his colleagues to succeed in their responsibilities as well.

We’re so convinced that how we think and feel about other people is caused by them,” he says, “by what they have or haven’t done, by how inconsiderate they have been to us or how judgmental, and so on. But a seventeen-year-old young woman taught me that this wasn’t true. I see people the way I see them because of me.

If I have an outward mindset, knowing that the organization’s success depends on my colleague’s success as well as my own, I will feel an obligation to help my colleague succeed.

Most approaches to leadership share two common problems. As we’ve discussed in this chapter, they fail to account adequately for mindset and therefore put too much faith in our ability to change behavior without addressing mindset. In addition, however, a problem that originated in Western thought some four hundred years ago has led to mindset and leadership approaches that are built on a mistake.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that “a ‘thing’ is the sum of its effects.

people who consistently work with an outward mindset excel in three ways that those who work with an inward mindset do not. They 1. see the needs, objectives, and challenges of others 2. adjust their efforts to be more helpful to others 3. measure and hold themselves accountable for the impact of their work on others

If there is one truism about life, surely it is that we are inextricably and inescapably together.

She lives in the presence of wonder at their thoughts and abilities and therefore provides space for them to create and grow and for her to create and grow in response to them.

Mulally pointed to ten BPR rules he had posted on the wall of the room3: • People first • Everyone is included • Compelling vision • Clear performance goals • One plan • Facts and data • Propose a plan, “find-a-way” attitude • Respect, listen, help, and appreciate each other • Emotional resilience … trust the process • Have fun … enjoy the journey and each other

Leaders fail,” Paul explains, “by coming in saying, ‘Here’s the vision. Now you go execute what I see.’ That’s just wrong in our view of the world.” Continuing, he says, “Although leaders should provide a mission or context and point toward what is possible, what humble, good leaders also do is to help people see.

When my mindset is outward, I am alive to and interested in other people and their objectives and needs. I see others as people whom I am open to helping. When my mindset is inward, on the other hand, I essentially turn my back on others; I don’t really care about their needs or objectives.

So while it’s true that behavior drives results, it’s also true that mindset drives behavior. Consequently, any solution to human problems that ignores this reality ignores too much of what’s true to produce reliable results.

We can be connected to others as with people or connected to others as with objects, but we are always connected. Separation is an abstraction. Together is our reality.

Rok Zorko, vice president of product development for the very successful app-development company, Outfit7, said, “It is an eye-opener to realize that you are not to treat people as objects but to treat them as people. Once you have this knowledge, you can never unthink it.

With Buber’s observations in mind, we can see that both of these leaders are connected with others rather than split from them. It’s just that one of them—the Isolated leader—is together with others as with objects, while the Together Leader is together with others as with people.

Inward-mindset people and organizations do things. Outward-mindset people and organizations help others to be able to do things.

when people see situations that need to change, the temptation is to immediately apply a behavioral solution. That seems like the fast approach. But if mindset is not addressed, it is usually the slow approach to change.

So while it’s true that behavior drives results, it’s also true that mindset drives behavior.

Hiring and onboarding approaches, sales and marketing processes, budgeting practices, incentive structures, performance evaluation and management systems, and every other organizational system, structure, and process can be conceived and deployed in inward-mindset or outward-mindset ways. Organizations that are serious about operating with an outward mindset turn these systems and processes outward to invite and reinforce outward-mindset working.

When leaders begin to take seriously the project of not taking themselves too seriously and begin collapsing the distinctions between themselves and others, they are positioned to begin scaling mindset change.

A good rule of thumb is that an organization is ready to deploy mindset-change efforts to the next level in an organization when those in the next level are seeing real change in the level above. Leaders demonstrate noticeable change as they begin questioning the privileges they reserve for themselves. To prompt such helpful changes, leaders could begin asking themselves questions like these: Do we need the prime parking spots? The best office spaces? Do we segregate ourselves in different cafeterias or more preferred parts of the building? Can perks that the few enjoy be made available to others? Can any trappings of “bigshotness” be removed? If we treat and pay ourselves generously, are we appropriately generous as well with our employees? And so on.

Outwardness does to inwardness what light does to darkness: it chases it away.