Quotes from The Arbinger Institute

Self-deception actually determines one's experience in every aspect of life.

If I don't remain open to how I might be mistaken in this deeper way, I might live out my life convinced I was on the right side of a given conflict, but I won't have found lasting solutions

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.

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.

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.

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

While it's true that she's doing everything she can think of, the problem is precisely that she can't see how she's the problem. Having the problem she has, nothing she can think of will be a solution.

Of all the problems in organizations, self-deception is the most common, and the most damaging.

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.

we should spend much more time and effort helping things go right than dealing with things that are going wrong.

when someone's in the box, the same pattern of mutual provocation and justification always emerges.

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.

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 problem of not knowing and resisting the possibility that one has a problem.

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.

the discovery of the cause of self-deception amounts to the revelation of a sort of unifying theory, an explanation that shows how the apparently disparate collection of symptoms we call 'people problems'—from problems in leadership to problems in motivation and everything in between—are all caused by the same thing.

Am I as vigilant in demanding the eradication of my own bigotry as I am in demanding the eradication of theirs?

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.

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

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.

A heart at war needs enemies to justify it warring. It needs enemies and mistreatment more than it wants peace.

The question for you as the leader is whether you are going to create an environment that is as enjoyable for your people as it is for you—a place that they are as excited about and devoted to as you are. The best leaders are those whom people want to follow.

when our hearts are at war, we not only invite failure, we invest in it.

The pyramid suggests that we should spend much more time and effort helping things go right than dealing with things that are going wrong.

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.