Leadership and Self-Deception

Published by The Arbinger Institute

Thanks to Vera Hummel for these two book reviews.

Arbinger Institute website, www.arbinger.com/en/home.html,  says this: “Suppose we say our organization  has a leadership problem, or a staff problem, or a motivation or teamwork problem, or stress, accountability, or communication, or grief problem? 

Your organization doesn’t have any of those problems.  They’re all symptoms of a single, underlying problem.  It’s the problem that arises when members resist seeing that they themselves are part of the problem.  The problem is self-deception.  And it causes nearly every people problem in every organization.  People problems, of course, turn into organizational problems.”

This book is written in story form, something like a novel.  However, every example used is a true story, using fictional names to maintain confidentiality of Arbinger’s trainers and clients.  Choosing not to honor a sense of what we feel we should do for another is called self-betrayal.  Arbinger suggests that self-betrayal is the germ that causes the disease of self-deception.  That leads to treating people as objects, justifying our own lack of response to others, and seeing others as worse than ourselves.   Reading this book helps us to understand what we are doing, what won’t work to repair broken relationships, and what we can do to help things go right.  While Arbinger doesn’t specifically speak about Christian principles, concepts, or theology, the book is full of connections to all that God wants us to be as His children.  Arbinger’s basic principle to treat people as people mirrors one of two great commandments:  love your neighbor as yourself.  Reading this book will help the reader understand how to begin to live with a heart at peace.

Anatomy of Peace

Arbinger Institute

This book is written in narrative form and uses many true examples to communicate the concepts of the book.  When beginning to read Anatomy of Peace, the reader might assume it is a duplicate of the book, Leadership and Self-Deception.  Readers will quickly understand that while the principles are the same, Anatomy of Peace offers deeper insights into who we become when we deceive ourselves.  It gives cues and clues that can be used to identify those times when we are out of Christian relationship with other people.   

Arbinger identifies typical behaviors of people living in self-deception, specifically describes things that will not work to fix broken relationships, and describes a pyramid of peace that shows where people are likely to have the most success at helping things go right. 

These books are easily read, and Arbinger cautions the reader to do more than know the material, suggesting that we must live the material.  The difficulty with the reading comes when the readers see themselves in the narrative and accept that they may just be part of the relational problems of their lives.