4. Shultz, On Being Wrong.
CHAPTER 4: TRAPPED BY AGREEMENT
1. And in what I think is the most unexpected finding from neuroscience yet, Lieberman found that if you take a Tylenol before being exposed to social pain, you feel less social pain! Don’t try this at home, though, because painkillers each have some diabolical effect on our stomach or livers. So it’s not a helpful form of self-medicating, but it’s really interesting all the same. M. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect (New York: Crown, 2013).
2. This mindtrap isn’t just alive in organizations with healthy family cultures, though. Even in organizations with toxic cultures, nearly all of the interactions I see are polite and well mannered in public, even if they slam one another in hallway sessions afterward.
3. D. Coyle, The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups (New York: Bantam, 2018).
4. Y. Li Lu, C. Yuan, and P. Lauretta McLeod, “Twenty-Five Years of Hidden Profiles in Group Decision Making: A Meta-analysis,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 16, no. 1 (2012): 54–75.
5. Lieberman, Social.
6. Coleman, Five Percent Solution.
7. R. P. Vallone, L. Ross, and M. R. Lepper, “The Hostile Media Phenomenon: Biased Perception and Perceptions of Media Bias in Coverage of the Beirut Massacre,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, no. 3 (September 1985): 577–85.
8. Catherine Fitzgerald is a pioneer in the field of executive coaching, with two books on leadership and coaching. This is one of the most helpful questions she has shared with me. Given that she’s also my mother, you could say that this was also her most helpful piece of maternal advice.
CHAPTER 5: TRAPPED BY CONTROL
1. For more on this, see Bandura’s wide body of work. You could start with A. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Approach,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 (2001): 1–26.
2. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory,” 1.
3. This perverse outcome of targets in complex settings is very well studied. For a dip into the literature, you can check out A. Meekings, S. Briault, and A. Neely, “How to Avoid the Problems of Target-Setting,” Measuring Business Excellence 15, no. 3 (2011): 86–98, http://bit.ly/yeci8d; J. Seddon, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: The Failure of the Reform Regime . . . and a Manifesto for a Better Way (Triarchy Press, 2008); and S. Shorrock and T. Licu, “HindSight 17,” Eurocontrol, July 2013.
4. This mindtrap shapes our political sphere too. Brexit was about regaining control that globalization more than the European Union had taken from the United Kingdom. I was once on an airplane sitting next to someone who was wanting to throw the governor of California out on his ear. What was so bad about Jerry Brown, I asked? “If he were any good,” my seatmate said, “why does California still have so many wildfires?” Here is the ultimate in blaming an individual when life is frighteningly out of control.
5. Coleman, Five Percent Solution.
CHAPTER 6: TRAPPED BY EGO
1. Thanks to Brene Brown for daring to get us in touch with our need for vulnerability. B. Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (New York: Penguin Group, 2012).
2. J. Quoidbach, D. Gilbert, and T. Wilson, “The End of History Illusion,” Science 229 (2013): 96–98.
3. J. Holmes, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing (New York: Crown Books, 2015), 224.
4. Kegan and Lahey, Everyone Culture, 1.
5. J. G. Berger, Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World (Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books, 2012); Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); D. Fisher, D. Rooke, and W. Torbert, Personal and Organisational Transformations: Through Action Inquiry (EdgeWork Press, 2003).
6. For a really interesting take on this idea, see H. Ibarra, “The Authenticity Paradox,” Harvard Business Review, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox.
7. I describe this process in much greater detail in Changing on the Job.
CHAPTER 7: BUILDING A LADDER TO ESCAPE THE MINDTRAPS
1. J. G. Berger and K. Johnston, Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014).
2. Here a thank-you to those leaders in the room that day—particularly Kirsten Dunlop and Mark Reinke—who knew about the cancer diagnosis, who offered to step in to take my place, and who supported me from the side when I wanted to do it myself. I learned much that day how the energetic support of others could make my road a little easier.
3. Patrick Hill, www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/having-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-may-add-years-to-your-life.html.
4. The research on money is clear, and the results are probably unexpected (unless you’ve read them). Money is vital to our happiness in order to get us out of subsistence levels, as you might expect. But once we are middle class and have enough money for food and shelter and the basics, there is basically no happiness prize in the ever-larger sums of money so many of us pursue.
5. T. Kashdan, L. Feldman Barrett, and P. McKnight, “Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 24, no. 1 (2015): 10–16.
6. My very favorite book on this subject is by the MacArthur Genius Grant winner Robert M. Sapolsky, who is also on my “desert island” list: Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping, 3rd ed. (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2004).
7. K. D. Neff and O. Davidson, “Self-Compassion: Embracing Suffering with Kindness,” in Mindfulness in Positive Psychology, ed. I. Ivtzan and T. Lomas, 37–50 (Routledge, 2016).
8. Personal communication.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bandura, A. 2001. “Social Cognitive Theory: An Agentic Approach.” Annual Review of Psychology 52: 1–26.
Berger, J. G. 2012. Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.
Berger, J. G., and K. Johnston. 2014. Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Brown, B. 2012. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. New York: Penguin Group.
Burton, R. A. 2008. On Being Certain. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Coleman, P. 2011. The Five Percent Solution: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. New York: Public Affairs.
Coyle, D. 2018. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. New York: Bantam Books.
Fisher, D., D. Rooke, and W. Torbert. 2003. Personal and Organisational Transformations: Through Action Inquiry. EdgeWork Press.
Harari, Y. N. 2015. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York: HarperCollins.
Holmes, J. 2015. Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing. New York: Crown Books.
Ibarra, H. 2015. “The Authenticity Paradox.” Harvard Business Review.
Kahneman, D. 2011. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Kashdan, T., L. Feldman Barrett, and P. McKnight. 2015. “Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 24, no. 1: 10–16.
Kegan, R. 1994. In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R., and L. Lahey. 2016. An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Li Lu, Y., C. Yuan, and P. Lauretta McLeod. 2012. “Twenty-Five Years of Hidden Profiles in Group Decision Making: A Meta-analysis.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 16, no. 1: 54–75.
Lieberman, M. 2013. Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. New York: Crown Books.
Neff, K. D., and
O. Davidson. 2016. “Self-Compassion: Embracing Suffering with Kindness.” In Mindfulness in Positive Psychology, ed. I. Ivtzan and T. Lomas, 37–50. Routledge.
Quoidbach, J., D. Gilbert, and T. Wilson. 2013. “The End of History Illusion.” Science 229: 96–98.
Sapolsky, R. M. 2004. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping, 3rd. ed. New York: Holt Paperbacks.
Shultz, K. 2010. On Being Wrong: Adventures at the Margin of Error. New York: HarperCollins.
Vallone, R. P., L. Ross, and M. R. Lepper. 1985. “The Hostile Media Phenomenon: Biased Perception and Perceptions of Media Bias in Coverage of the Beirut Massacre.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49, no. 3: 577–85.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer Garvey Berger believes that leadership is one of the most vital renewable resources in the world. At a time when organizations are often forging the path rather than following the path of others, leadership is about creating the conditions for people to be their most creative, connected, intelligent selves. Jennifer is a founding partner and CEO of Cultivating Leadership, a consultancy that serves executives and executive teams in the private, nonprofit, and government sectors around the world. She designs and teaches leadership programs, coaches senior teams, and supports new ways of thinking about strategy and people with clients facing these dramatic shifts in complexity, volatility, and change in their workplaces and markets. She blends deep theoretical knowledge with a driving quest for practical ways to make leaders’ lives better.
Jennifer holds a doctorate in adult development from Harvard University. She was an Associate Professor at George Mason University before she left the academy on a mission to connect powerful research and the people doing real work in the world. She is the author of Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World and coauthor with Keith Johnston of Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders, both from Stanford University Press.
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