The Outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute

The Outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute

Author:The Arbinger Institute
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Published: 2016-08-21T04:00:00+00:00


10 • Don’t Wait on Others

If you have read either Leadership and Self-Deception or The Anatomy of Peace, you will be familiar with the character named Lou Herbert. The inspiration for the Lou character was a man named Jack Hauck, the founder and longtime CEO of Tubular Steel, a St. Louis–based national distributor of steel and carbon products. Tubular had engaged one of the world’s best-known consultants to help it overcome the toxic infighting that plagued the senior management team and stymied the growth of the entire company. After months of trying one approach after another without success, Jack asked this consultant if he knew of any other approach the company could try. The consultant was acquainted with Arbinger’s work and recommended that Jack explore our ideas.

During our first meeting with Jack and his team, we focused on helping each executive team member reassess his or her contribution to the challenges the company faced by carefully considering the following statement: As far as I am concerned, the problem is me.

As eager as Jack was to solve his company’s problems, he struggled early on to apply this statement to himself. “I want you all to get the message,” he said. “I’m going to have posters made and put up all over the building.” Then, pointing his finger at the assembled executives and officers, he said, “Don’t forget: As far as you are concerned, the problem is you.” Eyes rolled, and people dropped their shaking heads into their hands. It is so easy to leave oneself out of the equation when considering an organization’s problems, even without realizing one is doing so.

Even though the issues at Tubular were not simply the problems of a single person, it was clear that no problem could be solved if individuals were not willing to address how they themselves were part of the problem. If you recall the Ford story from chapter 8, you’ll remember that the unwillingness of team members to step forward and admit their contribution to the company’s problems was the primary issue that Alan Mulally had to crack before anything could improve. Given the history at Ford, turning outward seemed too personally risky at the time for most members of the leadership team—so risky, in fact, that they had, in essence, decided that they would rather the company fail than admit and address their contributions to its problems. That is, until one person was willing to make the first move and turn outward without any assurance of what others would do.

So while the goal in shifting mindsets is to get everyone turned toward each other, accomplishing this goal is possible only if people are prepared to turn their mindsets toward others with no expectation that others will change their mindsets in return.

This capability—to change the way I see and work with others regardless of whether they change—overcomes the biggest impediment to mindset change: the natural, inward-mindset inclination to wait for others to change before doing anything different oneself. This is the natural trap in organizations.



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