Leadership and Self-Deception, with The Anatomy of Peace

Two books, one idea

Most of us carry a quiet belief that our hardest relationships would be fine if the other person would just change. These two short books from the Arbinger Institute gently turn that belief around. Leadership and Self-Deception tells the story of a new manager learning why his team keeps struggling. The Anatomy of Peace, its companion, follows a group of parents learning the same lesson at home. Both are written as conversations, more like a novel than a textbook.

The idea at the center of both is simple to say and harder to live. At any moment we are either "in the box" or "out of the box". In the box, we see the people around us through a filter of blame. Out of the box, we see them clearly, as people. Almost everything else in the books flows from that difference.

How we get in: self-betrayal

So how do we end up in the box? The books call the starting point "self-betrayal". Most of us often feel a small, ordinary sense of something we could do for another person: hold a door, return a call, help with a chore. When we notice that sense and then go against it, we have betrayed ourselves.

The book's best-known example is a father woken in the night by his crying baby. He has a clear thought: he could get up and settle the baby so his tired wife can sleep. He doesn't. And then something interesting happens. Lying there, he begins to see his wife differently. She must be pretending to sleep. She never notices how hard he works. Maybe she is just lazy. His own needs start to look larger, and hers smaller. Within a few minutes he has built a whole case for why staying in bed is perfectly reasonable, and why she is the one at fault.

That is the turn from self-justification into self-deception. To feel right about ignoring what we knew we should do, we have to see the other person as someone who doesn't deserve it. The distorted picture feels like the truth, so we don't notice we have created it. Over time these stories harden into habits we carry from one situation to the next, ready-made ways of seeing certain people.

And the box is contagious. When I treat you with quiet blame, you are likely to feel it and climb into your own box toward me. Now each of us provokes the very behavior we complain about, and each of us collects fresh evidence that we were right. The books call this mutual blaming cycle collusion. Two people can keep it going for years, each sincerely convinced the other one started it.

What doesn't work from inside the box

Once we see a problem, we naturally reach for solutions. The trouble is that while we are in the box, our solutions are shaped by the same blaming view, so they often make things worse. The books walk through the usual attempts:

• Trying to change the other person

  Our efforts carry the blame we feel, so the other person pushes back and our story about them gets confirmed.

• Simply coping

  Gritting our teeth keeps the same view of them alive underneath, and it leaks out sooner or later.

• Leaving

  A new job, house or friend group can help, but we bring the same way of seeing with us to the next place.

• Communicating harder

  Clearer words still carry the message "you are the problem", and people hear the message under the words.

• New skills or techniques

  A technique used on someone we resent tends to feel like a tactic to them, because it is one.

• Changing our behavior alone

  Being nicer on the outside while blaming on the inside rarely fools anyone for long.

None of these are bad things in themselves. They simply can't reach the real problem, which is not what we are doing but how we are seeing the other person.

The companion book

The Anatomy of Peace

The Anatomy of Peace carries the same ideas beyond the workplace, into homes and even long-running conflicts between peoples. Its story is framed around parents who bring their struggling teenagers to Camp Moriah, a wilderness program in the Arizona desert, and learn, from leaders Yusuf and Avi, whose families stand on opposite sides of the Middle East conflict, that the problem isn't only their kids.

The book reframes the box as the state of our heart. With a heart at peace, we see others as people even when we disagree with them or must stand firm. With a heart at war, we see them as objects, and we start to need their faults to keep feeling justified.

“A heart at war needs enemies to justify its warring.”

To show that a heart at peace is possible even in the hardest circumstances, the leaders turn to history. When the sultan Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187, he allowed most of its Christian residents to leave or ransom themselves rather than repeating the slaughter that had followed the city's capture by Crusaders nearly a century earlier. The book uses him as an example of someone who could fight a war without his heart being at war, and who saw his enemies as people.

The book also borrows from the philosopher Martin Buber, who described two basic stances toward others. In an "I-It" stance, the other person is a thing to use or manage. In an "I-Thou" stance, they are a full person we meet face to face. Being in or out of the box is, in Buber's language, the difference between those two ways of being.

The four boxes of self-justification

The Anatomy of Peace names four common styles we use to justify ourselves. Most people lean on one or two more than the others. Spotting yours is a gift, not an accusation.

• Better-than

  I see myself as more capable, moral or important than others, and I see them as lesser, lazy or in the way.

  For example: Thinking "I am the only one in this house who actually cares about keeping it clean" while sighing loudly at the dishes.

• I-deserve

  I see myself as owed something, whether thanks, rest or respect, and I see others as ungrateful or unfair.

  For example: After a long day, feeling that no one has the right to ask anything more of you, so a simple request feels like an attack.

• Must-be-seen-as

  I need others to see me a certain way, such as smart, kind, in control or a good parent, so people become an audience or a threat.

  For example: Snapping at a child in the grocery store not for their sake but because other shoppers are watching.

• Worse-than

  I see myself as broken, less than or a victim, and I see others as more fortunate, privileged or judging me.

  For example: Not speaking up in a meeting, then resenting colleagues for "never listening" to people like you.

Four steps out of the box

The companion book offers a simple path for the moments when we realize we are stuck.

1. 1

   Notice the signs

   Blame, resentment, a running list of someone's faults, and feeling unusually justified are clues that you may be in the box.

2. 2

   Find an out-of-the-box place

   Think of a person, place or activity where you naturally feel open and generous. Spending a moment there loosens the grip of the story you have been telling.

3. 3

   Rethink the situation

   From that steadier place, look again. What might this person be carrying? How have I added to it? What have I been avoiding?

4. 4

   Act on what you see

   Do the helpful thing that comes to mind, even if it is small. Seeing clearly matters only if we follow through.

A strategy of peace: the influence pyramid

When we need someone to change, we usually jump straight to correcting them. The book draws a pyramid that puts correction where it belongs, at the small tip, resting on a much larger base.

1. Correct

   Address what has to change, clearly and kindly. It belongs at the top and should take the least time.

2. Teach and communicate

   Explain what you see, what you need and why, so the other person can understand.

3. Listen and learn

   Seek to understand their view before you try to be understood.

4. Build relationships

   Invest in the person, and in the people who influence them, before the hard conversation comes.

5. A way of being

   Have a heart at peace: see the other person as a person. Everything above rests on this.

Two lessons come with it. First, most of our time and effort belongs near the base, in how we see people and in the relationships we build, not at the top. Second, when something isn't working at one level, the fix is usually found at a level below it. If correction keeps failing, we may need to listen more. If listening goes nowhere, the relationship may need care. And beneath it all is the question of whether our heart is at peace.

Questions for reflection

Take your time with these. You might write about one, or talk it through with someone you trust.

• Think of a relationship that feels stuck. What is my story about this person, and how does that story make me look?
• When did I last sense I should do something kind for someone and talk myself out of it? What happened to how I saw them afterward?
• Which of the four boxes do I reach for most often, and in which situations?
• Where in my life do I most naturally feel at peace, and how could I visit that place before a hard conversation?
• Who do I tend to correct before I have listened to them? What would change if I started lower on the pyramid?
• For parents: when my child struggles, am I mostly focused on what they need, or on how it reflects on me as a parent?