Quotes from The Arbinger Institute

pondered the question. "I doubt it. It's kind of tough to agree with people when they're criticizing you. You probably would have felt defensive if someone had accused you like that.

if I'm not interested in knowing a person's name, I'm probably not really interested in the person as a person.

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.

Generally speaking, we respond to others' way of being toward us rather than to their behavior.

If I betray myself," Bud said as he backed away from the board, "my thoughts and feelings will begin to tell me that I'm justified in whatever I'm doing or failing to do." He

While it's true we can't make others change, we can invite them to change.

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

how you can get out of the boxes you find yourself in—out of the blame, the self-justification, the internal warring, the apparent stuckness.

The biggest help in finding my way forward and out of the box was finding an out-of-the-box place, or vantage point, within me.

Self-betrayal is the germ that creates the disease of self-deception. And, like childbed fever, self-deception has many different symptoms—from lack of motivation and commitment to stress and communication problems. Organizations die, or are severely crippled, by those symptoms. And that happens because those who carry the germ don't know they're carrying it.

a vantage point from where I could ponder my life in a new way free from the blame and self-justification of the box.

There's a particular self-betrayal that almost everyone engages in at work to one degree or another, a self-betrayal concerning the very purpose of what we were hired to do—to focus on helping the organization and its people to achieve results. The key to solving most of the people problems that afflict organizations is in discovering how we can solve this central workplace self-betrayal.

I was free to see a different past along with a different present and future. I was freed from the limitations and distortions of the box.

I can be on the lookout for signs of the various common boxes, for example—ways I'm feeling better-than, or entitled, or worse-than, or anxious to be seen-as. "Then when I feel stuck in the box and desire to get out, I can find an out-of-the-box place—some place within me that is unencumbered by these boxes.

you might try to identify the people toward whom you are generally and currently out of the box. Names will come to mind, and simply thinking about your experiences with those people can take you to a vantage point from where the world seems different than it did the moment before.

What's the purpose of our efforts at work?" "To achieve results together

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE(FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.). 3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective).

RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE(FOUR PARTS) Getting out of the box 1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.). 2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).

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.

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.

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.