Seeing people as people rather than as objects enables better thinking because such thinking is done in response to the truth: others really are people and not objects.
And I would wager a mighty sum that your respective organizations look like this as well - with workers recruiting colleagues and others with the tales they tale, leading to organizations that are divided into warring silos, one group complaining incessantly about another, and the other returning the same.
I might, for example, yell at my kids about the importance of chores and be entirely correct about their importance. However, do you suppose I invite the help and cooperation I am wanting from them when my heart is at war in my yelling?
We first need to find our way out of the internal wars that are poisoning our thoughts, feelings, and attitudes towards others. If we can't put an end to the violence within us, there is no hope for putting an end to the violence without.
Was I really caused by outside forces to see and feel in these ways - the way I believed when I was in the box here? Or was I rather choosing to see and feel in these ways?
Because when I betray myself, I create within myself a new need - a need that causes me to see others accusingly, a need that causes me to care about something other than truth and solutions, and a need that invites others to do the same in response.
When I betray myself, others faults become immediately inflated in my heart and mind. I begin to horribilize others.
As painful as it is to receive contempt from another, it is more debilitating by far to be filled with contempt for another.
Make no mistake. The outward wars around us started because of an inwards war that went unnoticed: someone started seeing others as objects, and others used that as a justification for doing the same. This is the germ, and germination of war. When we are carrying this germ, we're just wars waiting to happen.
Self-betrayal corrupts everything - even the value we place on things.
I-DESERVE-BOX: I think I am entitled to things I am not getting. After all, if others aren't giving me what they should, it isn't my fault if I blame them or treat them poorly. People who go around feeling better-than generally feel entitled to a lot of things, so these two styles of justification often come together.
BETTER-THAN-BOX: If I think I am superior, I can excuse a lot of sins. This style of justification does not allow us to see others as people because we must see them prejudicially, as less than we are, less skilled perhaps, or less important, less knowledgeable, less righteous, and so on; but always less and therefore always objects. So when I'm in this box, I'm doing more than simply noticing differences; I'm making judgements about peoples worth based on those differences.
MUST-BE-SEEN-AS-BOX: You might be worried about being seen as likable, so you go soft. You end up treating others with indifference. You go soft precisely because you see them as an unimportant object, not because you see them as a person. You make a presentation of yourself; You have a need for others to see you in a way that justifies you. Would I be likely to just let it slide if I really cared about the person?
WORSE-THAN-BOX: I use my perceived disability as justification for separating myself from others. A crutch to use as an excuse to pull away and slink off into the shadows. Must-Be-Seen-As and Worse-Than justifications often come together.
We’ve talked about two ways of being: one with a heart at war, where we see others as objects, and the other with the heart at peace, where we see others as people.
So self-betrayal - this act of violating my own sensibilities toward another person - causes me to see that person or persons differently, and not only them but myself and the world also. ... Which is to say, that when I violate the sensibility I have about others and how I should be toward them, I immediately begin to see the world in ways that justify my self-betrayal.
Everyone I hated was always with me, even when I was alone.
Home and workplace casualties are everywhere. Bitterness, envy, indifference, resentment - these are the hallmarks of the hot and cold wars that fester in the hearts of family members, neighbors, colleagues, and former friends the world over.
When they spoke, it was kind of a verbal wrestling match, each of them trying to anticipate the other's moves, searching for weaknesses they could then exploit to force the other into submission. With no actual mat into which to press the other's flesh, these verbal matches always ended in a draw: each of them claimed hollow victory while living ongoing defeat.
The pyramid suggests that we should spend much more time and effort helping things go right than dealing with things that are going wrong. Unfortunately, however, these allocations of time and effort are typically reversed. We spend most of our time with others dealing with things that are going wrong. We try fixing our children, changing our spouses, correcting our employees, and disciplining those who aren't acting as we'd like. And when we're not actually doing these things, we're thinking about doing them or worrying about doing them.
It is only natural when confronting a problem that we try to correct it. Trouble is, when working with people, this hardly ever helps. Further correction rarely helps a child who is pouting, for example, or a spouse who is brooding, or a coworker who is blaming. In other words, most problems in life are not solved merely by correction.
So for many problems in life, solutions will have to be deeper than strategies of discipline or correction.
I become an agent of change, only to the degree that I begin to live to help things go right rather than simply to correct things that are going wrong.
Saladin seems to have had a regard for the people he was defeating, whereas the crusading forces just massacred all those people as though they didn't matter at all.
In the way we regard our children, our spouses, neighbors, colleagues, and strangers, we choose to see others as people like ourselves or as objects. They either count like we do or they don't. In the former case, since we regard them as we regard ourselves, we say our hearts are at peace toward them. In the latter case, since we systematically view them as inferior, we say our hearts are at war.
There are those who see humanely and those who don't in every country and faith community. Lumping everyone of a particular race or culture or faith into a single stereotype is a way of failing to see them as people.
Generally speaking, we respond to others' way of being toward us rather than to their behavior.
We can treat our children fairly, for example, but if our hearts are warring toward them while we're doing it, they won't think they're being treated fairly at all. In fact, they'll respond to us as if they weren't being treated fairly. As important as behavior is, most problems at home, at work, and in the world are not failures of strategy but failures of way of being.
As we've discussed, when our hearts are at war, we can't see situations clearly, we can't consider others' positions seriously enough to solve difficult problems, and we end up provoking hurtful behavior in others.
...our feelings toward each other poked through every word, look, and gesture.
Go ahead, look around. Are we seeing people, or are we seeing objects?
When we start seeing others as objects, we begin provoking them to make our lives difficult. We actually start inviting others to make us miserable. We begin provoking in others the very things we say we hate.
We might disagree about a lot of things, but how we do it makes a big difference. If we start seeing each other as objects, we'll get to the point where we'll need to see each other as disagreeable rather than as simply disagreeing.
Around and around we'll go, each of us provoking in the other the very things we're complaining about. ... We call this collusion rather than merely conflict.
…few people even realize the premises they have accepted.
Another characteristic of conflicts such as these, is the propensity to demonize others. One way we do this is by lumping others into lifeless categories - bigoted whites, for example, lazy blacks, crass Americans, arrogant Europeans, violent Arabs, manipulative Jews, and so on. When we do this, we make masses of unknown people into objects and many of them into our enemies.
...I challenge you to see everyone you encounter as a person.
Sometimes we might be forced to defend ourselves... But that is a different thing than saying that we are forced to despise, to rage, to denigrate, to belittle.
No one can force a warring heart upon us. When our hearts go to war, we ourselves have chosen it.
I'm suggesting I was making a choice that resulted in my feeling angry, depressed, and bitter.
A choice to betray myself is a choice to go to war.
Am I as vigilant in demanding the eradication of my own bigotry as I am in demanding the eradication of theirs? If I am not, I will be living in a kind of fog that obscures all the reality around and within me.
A heart at war needs enemies to justify its warring.
We are always in relation, inescapably and reciprocally together, both affecting and being affected by others.
When our hearts are at war, we tend to exaggerate others faults; that's what we call horribilizing. We also tend to exaggerate the differences between ourselves and those we are blaming. We see little in common with them, when the reality is that we are similar in many if not most respects. We also exaggerate the importance of anything that will justify us.
I betrayed myself, and my whole world changed. It changed because I had chosen a different way of being in the world - a way that needed justification. Because I needed justification, I began to see everything in a self-justifying way.
My need for justification obscures the truth.
When I let people go on hurting themselves and others without making the effort to help them to change, it is rarely because I am seeing them as a person.
As we betray ourselves over time, we develop characteristic styles of self-justification.
If I get in this box and don't get out, I end up taking the box with me. … I can end up living in a big box from which I already perceive people as objects. I no longer need to betray my sense regarding another in order to be in the box toward him because I am already in the box. I am always on the lookout for offense when I'm in the box.
Which is to say, that when I violate the sensibility I have about others and how I should be toward them, I immediately begin to see the world in ways that justify my self-betrayal.
If we are poor learners, our teaching will be ineffective.
I become an agent of change only to the degree that I begin to live to help things go right rather than simply to correct things that are going wrong.
When our correction isn't working, we normally bear down harder and correct more. And when our teaching is going poorly, we often try to rescue it by talking more and insisting more. That is we drone on in an attempt to correct the problems we have created by droning on!
My own contempt for others is the most debilitating pain of all, for when I am in the middle of it - when I am seeing resentfully and disdainfully - I condemn myself to living in a disdained, resented world.
In fact when I let people go on hurting themselves and others without making the effort to help them to change, it is rarely because I am seeing them as a person.
People should be involved in determining the results they need to deliver in the context of a collective result.
You will make progress toward change much more quickly to the degree you first attend to mindset.
Inward-mindset people and organizations do things. Outward-mindset people and organizations help others to be able to do things.
But if you start with changing mindsets, behavioral transformations can happen quickly.
So what begins as a conflict between two people spreads to a conflict between many as each person enlists others to his or her side.
I need to put time and effort into building relationships. If I don't work on the bottom part of the pyramid, I won't be successful at the top.
We are all surrounded by other autonomous people who don't always behave as we'd like.
They were trying to establish a lasting victory.
The secret of Saladin's success in war was that his heart was at peace.
You care whether you are being seen as a person or as an object. In fact, there is little you care more about than this.
When our hearts are at war, we can't see clearly.
Actually, when our hearts are at war, we not only invite failure, we invest in it.
Our connections with others are integral to who we are.
We end up gathering with allies – actual, perceived, or potential… As a result of this fact, conflicts try to spread.
Everyone begins acting in ways that invite more of the very problem from the other side that each is complaining about.
In your conflicts with others, even if you are convinced you have been right in the positions you've taken, can you say with confidence that you have also been right in your way of being toward them?
I betrayed that sense and acted contrary to what I knew was right at that moment.
He didn't count anymore. At least not like you counted.
No one, whatever their actions, can deprive me of the ability to choose my own way of being. Difficult people are nevertheless people, and it always remains in my power to see them that way.
Whenever I dehumanize another, I necessarily dehumanize all that is human – including myself.
We can't be agents of peace until our own hearts are at peace.
We need to have everybody involved. We need to have a plan. And we need to know where we are on the plan.
While I's true we can't make others change, we can invite them to change.
Am I as vigilant in demanding the eradication of my own bigotry as I am in demanding the eradication of theirs?
No one, whatever their actions, can deprive me of the ability to choose my own way of being.
Difficult people are nevertheless people, and it always remains in my power to see them that way...Seeing someone as a person doesn't mean you have to be soft...Even war is possible with a heart at peace.
So self-betrayal - this act of violating my own sensibilities toward another person - causes me to see that person or persons differently, and not only them but myself and the world also.
When you begin to see others as people, issues related to race, ethnicity, religion, and so on begin to look and feel different. You end up seeing people who have hopes, dreams, fears, and even justifications that resemble your own.
What would be a problem is to insist that others need to change while being unwilling to consider how we ourselves might need to change too.
If I am correcting and correcting but problems remain, that is a clue that the solution to the problem I am facing will not be found in further correction.
People want solutions. But notice that the preferred solution in each case is that others change. Should we be surprised, then, when conflicts linger and problems remain?
But not all weapons are aimed at the flesh. Look around. Home and workplace casualties are everywhere. Bitterness, envy, indifference, resentment - these are the hallmarks of the hot and cold wars that fester in the hearts of family members, neighbors, colleagues, and former friends the world over.
Seeing an equal person as an inferior object is an act of violence...It hurts as much as a punch to the face. In fact, in many ways it hurts more. Bruises heal more quickly than emotional cars do.
In fact, have you noticed that we sometimes choose to poke another in the eye even when doing so harms our own position?
The most successful negotiators understand the other side's concerns and worries as much as their own.
People whose hearts are at war toward others can't consider other's objections and challenges enough to be able to find a way through them.
We can treat our children fairly, for example, but if our hearts are warring toward them while we're doing it, they won't think they're being treated fairly at all. In fact, they'll respond to us as if they weren't being treated fairly.
As important as behavior is, most problems at home, at work, and in the world are not failures of strategy but failures of way of being. As we've discussed, when our hearts are at war, we can't see situations clearly, we can't consider others' positions seriously enough to solve difficult problems, and we end up provoking hurtful behavior in others.
If we have deep problems, it's because we are failing at the deepest part of the solution.
We end up gathering with allies - actual, perceived, or potential - as a way of feeling justified in our own accusing views of others. As a result of this fact, conflicts try to spread...So what begins as a conflict between two people spreads to a conflict between many as each person enlists others to his or her side. Everyone begins acting in ways that invite more of the very problem from the other side that each is complaining about.
Cogito ergo sum - or I think therefore I am...You will notice there are big assumptions in Descartes' starting point. The biggest of these is the assumption of the primacy of the separate human consciousness, what Descartes called the I. Descartes' foundational assumption is disproved by the conditions that made it possible for him to state it in the first place.
Most wars between individuals are of the 'cold' rather than the 'hot' variety - lingering resentment, for example, grudges long held, resources clutched to rather than shared, help not offered. These are the acts of war that most threaten our homes and workplaces.
The best leaders are those whom people want to follow. We have a different word for people whom others follow only because of force or need. We call them tyrants.
Those who are tasked with doing can always blame poor performance on uninformed or unrealistic plans, while those who do the planning can always blame failures on poor execution.
We call mindset work slow in this context because too often people who think only of direct behavioral solutions to problems don't understand the need for attention to mindset.
What if, individually and collectively, we systematically misunderstand that cause and unwittingly perpetuate the very problems we think we are trying to solve?
The state of your heart toward your children - whether at peace or at war - is by far the most important factor in this intervention we are now undertaking.
Can't you feel it? How our emotions are beginning to run away from us, and how we are beginning to provoke hostile comments and feelings in each other?
Everyone waits. So nothing happens.
Leaders who succeed are those who are humble enough to be able to see beyond themselves and perceive the true capacities and capabilities of their people. They don't pretend to have all the answers. Rather, they create an environment that encourages their people to take on the primary responsibility for finding answers to the challenges they and their facilities face.
Mindset drives and shapes all that we do - how we engage with others and how we behave in every moment and situation.
The obvious contributing factor to success is a person's actions or behaviors - the things one chooses to do.
...when people see situations that need to change, the temptation is to immediately apply a behavioral solution. That seems like the fast approach. But if mindset is not addressed, it is usually the slow approach to change.
We invite you to do a mindset check before you start rolling out behavioral solutions.
…mindset change facilitates sustainable behavior change.
In contrast, parents and leaders who have a responsibility to help others improve and grow may engage in harder behaviors when their mindsets are outward. Why? Because sometimes the help a person needs is a long way from soft.
I resolved that I would never make assumptions about others' abilities before they are given appropriate opportunities.
Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.
If an organization tells its people to operate with an outward mindset but persists in implementing systems and processes that are designed to "manage" objects, the systems and processes will end up winning…
...if your organization tells you to have an outward mindset but rewards and pays you for being inward, the perverse incentives can seem overwhelming. Some of the most common structural impediments to outward-mindset working are inwardly focused success metrics.
A person whose mindset is outward sees others as people. Seeing them as people, he realizes that others matter like he himself matters. And because they do, their needs, objectives, and challenges will matter to him as well. As a result, his objectives and behaviors will take others into account.
Sustained growth cannot come from expertise that resides outside an organization. While short-term growth sometimes can be purchased that way, ongoing sustained growth cannot be outsourced. An organization will rise only as far as its own people are equipped to take it.
As the mindset changes, so does the behavior, without having to prescribe the change.
However, a person also can introspect about one's connections with others as well, which is the very essence of what we are calling outwardness. Sometimes it is helpful to look inside to see how one is connected with what is outside.
It is an eye-opener to realize that you are not to treat people as objects but to treat them as people. Once you have this knowledge, you can never unthink it.
Because people plagued with an inward mindset are ignoring the needs, objectives, and challenges of others, they will see their circumstances and execute their work in ways that justify their self-focus.
Think about the times in your life when you have felt most alive and engaged. Who and what were you focused on in those moments - on yourself or on something bigger that included others?
Similarly an inward mindset doesn't make people hard. In fact, people whose mindsets are inward often engage in behaviors that are softer than would be helpful.
Who we are is who we are with others.
… in whatever a person does, his or her mindset comes through, and others respond to this combination of behavior and mindset.
Leaders will cry for greater accountability, but the way most organizations are set up breeds a constant lack of accountability.
If a person or company tries to get people to adopt new behaviors that aren't supported by their underlying mindsets, how successful do you think such a change effort will be?
While 'compliant' behavior by employees might be achievable, at least to some degree, 'committed' behavior won't happen without a change in mindset.
By contrast, a person whose mindset is inward sees others more like objects - like vehicles to use, for example, obstacles to blame, or irrelevancies to ignore. From his point of view, others don't really matter like he matters. He is consumed with his own objectives, and the needs, objectives, and challenges of others don't really matter to him. His own objectives and behaviors become self-focused.
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.
Being able to operate with an outward mindset when others do not is a critically important ability.
The outward mindset doesn't make them soft; it makes them smart.
Parents will have more success with their children if they live by the same set of rules as their children.
What can we do to help others understand how we value and appreciate them?
Which people or groups of people in this organization probably most feel as if they are seen as objects?
The challenge is how to respond with an outward mindset when those we work or live with invite the opposite.
To be outward doesn't mean that people should adopt this or that prescribed behavior. Rather, it means that when people see the needs, challenges, desires, and humanity of others, the most effective ways to adjust their efforts occur to them in the moment. When they see others as people, they respond in human and helpful ways. They naturally adjust what they do in response to the needs they see around them. With an outward mindset, adjusting one's efforts naturally follows from seeing others in a new way.
When leaders begin to take seriously the project of not taking themselves too seriously and begin collapsing the distinctions between themselves and others, they are positioned to begin scaling mindset change.
It will seem risky to manage those they see and treat as objects with systems and processes that are designed to empower people. This is one of the reasons why an outward-mindset approach becomes such a competitive advantage. Those who are unwilling to adopt an outward mindset won't be able to successfully replicate outward-mindset systems, processes, and approaches, while organizations that turn systems and processes outward become positioned to achieve and sustain higher levels of performance.
The way we use the term, mindset is more than a belief about oneself. It refers to the way people see and regard the world - how they see circumstances, challenges, opportunities, other people, and themselves. Their behaviors are always a function of how they see their situations, relationships, and possibilities.
So while it's true that behavior drives results, it's also true that mindset drives behavior.
Approaches that ignore the importance of mindset fail to account for not only why people are choosing to behave as they do but also why people respond as they do to others.
Their shift from an inward to an outward mindset illustrates how people are able to consider better possibilities when their mindsets are outward because they see beyond themselves…
Seeing others differently, they began thinking and behaving differently.
… people who choose to dismiss the needs and objectives of others end up searching for ways to justify that choice.
If people see their leader just dipping their toe in, they will think, rightly, that the effort probably won't amount to much. Consequently, the leader sees a lukewarm response in his or her people and on that basis decides it isn't worth the effort. But that same leader is blind to the biggest reason for the observed reaction: the people have a tepid response because they see the leader's tepid response.
Remember, the principle to apply is, as far as I am concerned, the problem is me. I am the place to start. Others responses will depend mostly on what they see in me.
A mother who applies one set of rules to herself and another set to her children, for example, undercuts her ability to influence positive mindset change in her children.
Leaders who question the trappings of privilege they enjoy, and, where strong business reasons for maintaining the differences don't exist, are willing to collapse the distinctions between themselves and others in the company.
So if you have struggled with an inward mindset in different aspects of your life, realize that learning to take on an outward mindset is more than simply learning a different way; it's actually the way one expunges to old way.
Start where you are. Do a little at a time. Keep at it.
Unfortunately, the same principle works as well in reverse. When we interact with someone who is operating with an inward mindset, we may feel that he is failing to consider our views or opinions, and we can see that as an invitation to take offense or withdraw. If we do, we will give back to this person exactly what he is giving to us, and we will become embroiled in an inward-mindset struggle.
Moreover, as their mindsets change, people begin thinking and acting in ways they hadn't imagined before.
It was a shift from seeing themselves as fundamentally separate from others to seeing themselves and others as fundamentally connected.
What if you have spent much of your life with an inward mindset? … If this has been your reality, how easy should you expect it to be to shift to an outward mindset?
Sometimes having an outward mindset is rather easy. We may be among people who care about each other, and it may seem utterly natural and easy to respond to them with an outward mindset. Our teams at work, for example, may be filled with energetic and helpful individuals. Or we may be fortunate to be in a family filled with kind and generous people. In such cases it is relatively easy to maintain an outward mindset. Why? Because we feel so cared for and considered by those whose mindsets are outward toward us that we feel no need or desire to be defensive toward them.
Our thoughts, too, depend on others. Consider how our minds are shaped fundamentally by the cultures into which we are born and the languages that we acquire through interactions with others.
Justification has some telltale signs…When our hearts are at war, we tend to exaggerate others faults; that's what we call horribilizing. We also tent to exaggerate the differences between ourselves and those we are blaming. We see little in common with them, when the reality is that we are similar in many if not most respects. We also exaggerate the importance of anything that will justify us.
...the issue of self-deception (the problem of not knowing one has a problem) and how it affects all other problems.
Seeing people as people rather than as objects enables better thinking because such thinking is done in response to the truth: others really are people and not objects.
Missing Reference