Being Out of the Box, Part 3

As we close the "miniseries" on the great work by the Arbinger Institute, the thoughts below detail how we can stay out of the box and help to invite positive change in others.

Our way of being rules over all.

What do we mean by "way of being"? In fact, it means the way of being with others, the way we are in relationship. Human beings are social beings, and we know ourselves in comparison with and through the eyes of others. Our "self-image" is really a "self-image-in-relationship-with-others."

As I've pointed out in a prevoius post, there are two ways of seeing others: as persons (out of the box), or as objects (in the box).

• As persons: we see people as persons when we recognize their uniqueness just like ours, with their flaws and qualities, just like ours, with desires, hopes, doubts and concerns, just like ours - in short, when we acknowledge all the richness of their humanity.
• As objects: we see people as objects when we "de-personalize" them, for example when we reduce them to a category (an American, an Arab, a Rich), to a role (a Customer, a Clerk, a Politician), or just to a quality (a Jerk, a Snob, an Inconsiderate Neighbor). There are three ways of seeing a person as object: as an obstacle ("my Needy Husband is making my life a burden!"), as a vehicle ("this Client will hopefully sign the contract and make me rich."), or as an irrelevancy ("I never bothered talking to this Idiot...").

Staying out of the box

If you think about it, you are most likely not "in the box" with everyone you know. Probably one of the most effective ways to climb out of the box is to reflect on how you relate to people you know you appreciate and see as people, and try hard to transfer that mindset to others that you struggle with. Continually being aware of how you interact with people is key.

I recently had separate discussions with two students who were at odds with each other... it happens in the band room from time to time. I asked each how they thought the other perceived them. After getting some good honest answers (not nice, overbearing, inconsiderate), I asked if those adjectives were accurate to how they thought of themselves. Of course, the answer was no. We then briefly discussed why the other would think the way they do. It was a round-about way of showing them that they were in the box toward each other.

After we identified issues of conflict, I asked each to list some qualities about the other that they admired. Each was again honest (hard working, generous, funny). To tie things up, I challenged each student to think of those things they admired about the other during future interactions. When I follow up soon, hopefully, there will be some positive movement in their relationship!

Inviting change in others

If we think about it, we cannot make people change; we can only invite them to change. They decide, in the end, whether they accept the invitation.

We focus on "correcting what's wrong"...

Dealing with what is going wrong is to focus on the problem we see in others - it means correcting, criticizing, fixing, disciplining, punishing, etc. Does it often work when you tell someone he should be different? Have you often changed after someone told you how wrong you were?

 

Sometimes yes, you might say. But it's likely that most of the time, it doesn't work. What to do then? Well in my experience, we tend to keep trying harder, louder, longer, hoping that one day, he will get it!

That's the classic pattern, and that's how conflicts tend to get entrenched.

...And forget to "help things go right"

There is nothing wrong about wanting others to change, but if "dealing with what's going wrong" doesn't work, it is usually because we have been doing it at the expense of helping things go right. As the pyramid diagram shows, in order to invite change, helping things go right is the biggest part of the work. There are several parts to it, and that's where we need to spend most of our time and energy.

In simple terms, it is to say that we have more chance to invite change in someone if we approach her without resentment, if we have built a relationship with her and her friends/family, if we have listened and learnt from her, and if we explain clearly the change we want to invite. Is that really surprising?

If it doesn't work, look deeper

The secret of the Peacemaking Pyramid is that it prompts us to look for solutions to a problem at a deeper level than the one the problem seems to be at. The answer to a problem at one level of the pyramid lies at the level below.

• If my attempts to correct you fail, I need to look at the way I am communicating and explaining what I want - am I being clear? Am I giving a consistent rationale for what I want?
• If my communicating and teaching fail, I need to look at my listening and learning from you. There is little chance you will listen to my teaching if I don't even try to understand your perspective. If your concerns are not included in my understanding of the situation, why would you listen to me?
• Even if I'm open to listen to your concerns, you may not bother share them with me if you don't like or respect me. I then need to focus on building a stronger relationship with you, it's a necessary condition.
• It is possible that my attempts to influence you are unsuccessful not because you are closed, but because you have people with influence around you (parents, friends, co-workers, etc.) pushing you in the other direction. I may need to also build a relationship with people around you, in order to make them part of the change too, or their influence will be too strong for you to swim against the current.
• If you are not receptive to my influence in spite of all the above conditions being met, something more fundamental might be missing. Of course, it can be that you just don't like the change I invite in you. But it can also be that I am not inviting it from a deep desire to help you, in which case you may be defensive against my deeper intentions. I therefore need to look at my "way of being:" do I really come to you with a heart at peace? Let's explore this point in more depth in the following section.

Our "Way of being" colors the world

The first and most fundamental step for helping things go right is to obtain a heart at peace. It is not so much the actions we take that invite war, but the way we are while taking them. The same action can be done from a heart at peace or a heart at war. Inviting the other to change with a heart at war, even if you are right about the thing to change, is likely to provoke a defensive reaction. If the dishes need to be done and you are nagged to do them because you are focused on another task you deem more important, your natural tendency is to eventally do the dishes, but perhaps with resentment. Your heart is at war with the person who nagged.

What determines which way we see someone? Simply, our choice.

I cannot more strongly recommend The Anatomy of Peace to you. When you truly want to dig deeper and work to become a better person, this book will be a wonderful, effective jumping-off point.

 

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Being Out of the Box, Part 2

Choices, choices, choices. Paper or plastic? Left or right? Chocolate or vanilla? Cash or credit? Every day we are confronted with hundreds, if not thousands of choices. Many of them are as inconsequential as choosing to cross our legs when we sit down. Yet others can move us from simply existing to transcending. As Albert Camus once said, "We are the sum of our choices." How true!

As I wrote in the first part of this series, according to the Arbinger Institute's fantastic books The Anatomy of Peace and Leadership and Self Deception, we are "in the box" toward others when we see them as objects in the way of our goals or plans. When we fail to see the humanity in others, we dehumanize (objectify) them, elevating ourselves in importance. In the process, consequently, we dehumanize ourselves as well.

We move into the box when we make a choice that goes against our sense of what is right, just or decent. This is called "Self betrayal." Imagine this scenario for example: you are walking down a busy street in a large city. On the corner ahead, you see a homeless pan handler and feel a momentary twang of pity. Immediately following that twang, however, you think of ways to ignore him, perhaps quickening your pace. As you walk by, you avoid eye contact. You pretend to be busy doing something on your smart phone, or simply look the other way.

How are you seeing that man? As a down and out person who may have had a recently rough life and could use a smile or a hand? No. He has been objectified as something to ignore. This is where the box comes into play. In order for us to feel OK with ignoring the homeless in this example, we betray our natural prediliction to help and begin to justify our behavior... "I'm in a hurry." "I don't have any money to spare." "I don't want to be seen as a soft touch." "Maybe he would attack me." "He would only buy drugs or alcohol with the money!" You see my point.

All of a sudden, though, we have dehumanized him in order to be comfortable with our choice. We had an opportunity to respond to our natural sense of decency, but chose to deny it. In justifying our behavior, we are "in the box" toward him.

To draw a parallel with another book, in Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" he relates the following story:

"One day on the subway, while quietly reading a book, I was interrupted by two wild children that got on with their father at a subway stop.

"The children were out of control, jumping up and down, running loudly through the subway car.

"The father seemed not to notice or care that his children were misbehaving and disturbing commuters…

"I approached the father and wanted to scold him for not controlling his children and teaching them respect for others…

The father agreed, and sighed sullenly, saying “yeah, I just don’t know what to do or say to them. We just came from the hospital where their mother died from a random assault….”

Hearing this story immediately changed Stephen’s paradigm of the children and the situation. He went on to explore this and counsel the man who had lost his wife.

When relating to peers in the workplace, students at school, or family members at home, it is important to our effectiveness that we do what we can to avoid seeing others as objects.

How will we be able to do this? Part three in this series will address the suggestions that the Arbinger Institute makes to pull us out of our boxes (and keep us out!)

 

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Being Out of the Box: Part 1

Have a look at this video I found recently. As you watch, keep in mind that the silver sedan has its windows open:

Thanks to a good friend of mine, Alan Feirer, I discovered two books that have already shaped the way I interact with each person with whom I come in contact. The Arbinger Institute has published two critically acclaimed tomes: Leadership and Self Deception and its follow up book, The Anatomy of Peace.

The mission of the Institute is to help people understand that improved effectiveness as a person can be had by looking within at how we see other people. It rises out of many decades of research and has a firm grounding in philosophy.

At its essence, the philosophy of improving our effectiveness boils down to whether we see other people as objects that stand in the way of our own goals of achievement and/or advancement, or if we see others as people just like us; with the same kinds of hopes, dreams, worries and fears as ourselves. Seeing others as objects is referred to by Arbinger as being "in the box."

Would you say that the drivers in the video are considerate of each other's humanity? Um, no. Each saw the other as in the way, and the driver of the SUV went so far as to feel justified enough to retaliate for what he or she felt was a wrong doing.

The humbling thing about thinking of people as objects is that we all do it at different times each and every day. We probably see people this way more often than we care to admit. This is a HARD truth, and one that I continue to grapple with.

According to these great books, how does one more specifically climb into or out of the box? Find out:

Being Out of the Box: Part 2

Being Out of the Box: Part 3

 

 

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