Quotes from Arbinger Institute

The culture of blame that is so prevalent in organizations is replaced with a culture of deep responsibility-taking and accountability.

The reason this book has been so instrumental in helping people to resolve conflict is that it opens readers to how they have helped to create the very problems they have attributed to others. This is the essence of the self-deception solution— discovering how each of us has the problem of not knowing we have a problem. This is the realization that makes conflict resolution possible.

The question caught me off guard.

I understand that I may not be responsible for the things he's done. But I am responsible for what I've done.

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.

Think about it this way," Bud went on, pointing to the board. "What's the only thing that happened in this story between the time that I wasn't irritated and angry and the time I was?" I looked at the diagram. "Your choice not to do what you felt you should do," I said. "Your self-betrayal." "That's right. That's all that happened. So what caused my irritation and anger at Nancy?

Because then we're all doomed. That's to say that our entire experience, even our thoughts and feelings, are controlled and caused by others. It's to believe that we're not responsible for who we've become.

But that wasn't true. The only thing that happened between the time that Bud felt irritated and angry and the time that he didn't was something that Bud did — his own self-betrayal — not something that Nancy did. So Bud's feelings were lying to him!

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.

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.

But that is not what Carol is suggesting. She hasn't said anything about letting Cory off the hook. She's only been talking about not letting herself off the hook.

And Cory didn't, that's her point," Yusuf said. "Didn't what?" "Didn't make her feel that way.

In this way, a problem that had gone on literally for years was solved nearly overnight when the leaders stopped simply assigning responsibility and began holding themselves strictly accountable. This is now the model in that company for solving every problem encountered.

Lasting solutions to the battles in our workplaces, homes, and battlefields will come only as we end the war in our souls.

That I am responsible for how I have been feeling, not only for what I have been doing.

Conflict is ubiquitous. Workplaces, homes, and communities are riddled with it. The trouble is, not nearly enough people understand what to do about it. The 2013 Executive Coaching Survey published by Stanford University, for example, reveals that company CEOs feel a greater need to improve their conflict management skills than skills of any other type.

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.

The key to solving most of the people problems that afflict organizations is in discovering how we can solve this central workplace self-betrayal.

what he wants. And

Which is to say," he continued, "that when I violate the sensibility I have about others and how I should be toward them, I immediately begin to see the world in ways that justify my self-betrayal. In those moments, I am beginning to see and live crookedly, which creates the need within me to be justified.

So, Mr. Herbert," Mei Li continued, looking at Lou once more, "did it make a difference to Jenny? I don't know. But it made a difference to me. It helped me keep a heart at peace. And I think that might have made a difference to her. Like Yusuf and Avi always tell us, we can't be agents of peace until our own hearts are at peace.

The most effective leaders lead in this single way: by holding themselves more accountable than all.