Leadership and Self Deception
Reading the book is deceptively simple, but also engaging, in part because of the narrative format, akin to "The Goal" by Eli Goldratt.
In the age of LLM's, what is useful for me to write about the book and what is the purpose of writing notes on this publicly?
After all, the LLM can provide a clear summary.
Recollection for myself, and then applications.
What are some core ideas (paraphrased by myself) of this book?
Leadership starts with self accountability not blaming others.
One interesting anecdote was about how one leader, to solve a problem many steps below him, started the discussion with how he needed to take accountability for contributing to the existence of this problem.
Then along the chain, each leader talked about what they had done to contribute to the problem.
To stay out of the box, think about people as people with human needs.
The concept of the "box" relates to objectification, and how objectification of other people in relationships and in organizations (which consist of relationships) puts people each inside of a box of blaming.
Blaming takes focus away from results.
The back-biting and posturing and conflict means people are unable to solve results. The ideal perspective is how to help other people to achieve results.
The box justifies its existence.
Once someone is inside of a box, the box now justifies its existence by finding more reasons to blame others (thereby keeping oneself inside of the box.
Self-deception and self-betrayal mean the individual has abandoned what they know to be the right way of being.
Critical to the concept is that people know what is the right way instinctively, but the need for self-justification and blaming blinds them to that right way.
It's an interesting comparison to Pharisees leading people, versus The Way, and both share a form of spiritual blindness.
Applications
I suppose the easiest way is, within any context, to first start by staying out of the box.
The question is whether staying out of the box keep others from going inside the box towards me.
And there's some implication in the book that doing so will do that.
But there's also examples at the end saying that this shared model, language and practice needs to be instilled for an organization to truly thrive with these principles.
I think an underanswered question is whether doing this be ane ffective way to manage up? Or only to lead others? Can it mitigate a toxic environment where it just takes one or two very "in the box" people who clearly blame others, and do so without calling it out and holding them accountable for this behavior?
I think it's missing that attribute.
But for leadership, starting or running a company, I definitely see the value.