Sunday, August 31, 2008
Meetings Never Start on Time
Dear Pragmatist,
I work in a place where the meetings never start on time. I look around at the number of people wasting their time and I get irritated.
You are not alone; however, getting irritated isn’t the answer. This happens everywhere, although there are some work place cultures where meeting starts are worse than others. I have even had occasion to work for senior executives who came in late as a way to demonstrate their importance (pretty old school, huh).
I always bring something from my ever-growing “to read” stack; that way I use the waiting time productively.
The real leadership lesson here is to not get angry. It will sour you and the people around you.
Patience and productivity will serve you better than grumbling.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Getting Out of the Box
My latest read is Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box. Presented by The Arbinger Institute, it identifies a single cause at the heart of leadership problems, one that lies beneath issues of behavior or skill or technique. The problem is self-deception.
The book is like a short novel about a new employee and his interactions his boss and others. (I am in the minority because I found it tiresome after a while.)
Back to the title - the foundational question is whether we are “in the box” or not. “In the box” refers generally to viewing others as objects and behaving in ways that inflate our self-importance while diminishing others.
What is interesting about the premise of self-deception is that it starts with you betraying someone (for example, by blaming others or hogging credit for something that you didn’t do) and then justifying your behavior by blaming the person you just wronged.
We deceive ourselves into thinking that we’re doing the right thing for the right reason, even though we’re really just serving our own self-interest.
We really do know what the right thing to do is, but this constant cycle of self-justification becomes such an ingrained habit that it’s hard to break.
So...do the right thing. Accept responsibility.
The book is like a short novel about a new employee and his interactions his boss and others. (I am in the minority because I found it tiresome after a while.)
Back to the title - the foundational question is whether we are “in the box” or not. “In the box” refers generally to viewing others as objects and behaving in ways that inflate our self-importance while diminishing others.
What is interesting about the premise of self-deception is that it starts with you betraying someone (for example, by blaming others or hogging credit for something that you didn’t do) and then justifying your behavior by blaming the person you just wronged.
We deceive ourselves into thinking that we’re doing the right thing for the right reason, even though we’re really just serving our own self-interest.
We really do know what the right thing to do is, but this constant cycle of self-justification becomes such an ingrained habit that it’s hard to break.
So...do the right thing. Accept responsibility.
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