I loved The Incredible Hulk TV series (the one with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno). “Dr. David Banner, physician, scientist—searching for a way to tap into the hidden strength that all humans have. Then, an accidental overdose of gamma radiation alters his body chemistry. And now, when David Banner grows angry or outraged, a startling metamorphosis occurs.” Let’s be honest here; startling doesn’t come close. Here David Banner is—nice guy, talented, smart, and generally soft-spoken. He is a guy you would want as a next-door neighbor unless your dog loves to get into your neighbors’ trash. If that’s the case, look out. You don’t want to make David Banner green. True, the Hulk may be incredible, but the reality is that he can only do one thing well. He smashes things. And yet, in the morning, he will have forgotten all about it. He will wake up wearing ugly purple shorts and maybe have a vague recollection of perhaps some smashing and some bashing, but that’s it. Apparently, what happens as the Hulk, stays with the Hulk. But the Hulk has a real advantage in all of this. None of the smashing is ever his fault. We were warned: “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I am angry.” Yes, he went all “hulk” on them, but they drove him to it. And that makes the Hulk just like most of us because when we want to go green on the person in front of us, we also believe that it is all their fault; but it is not because of an overdose of gamma radiation. It is that we are terribly self-deceived.

For the next several weeks, we are going to discuss a book that had a profound influence on my life. The book is entitled, Leadership and Self-Deception. It was first published in 2000, but a new edition has been published this year. Now, I realize that 2000 was a long time ago, but I often think of this book and probably need to think of it more than that. And my friends would probably want to say a lot more. It was written by a team from the Arbinger Institute (no single author is listed) which further confuses why we would devote a blog series to it. After all, the Arbinger Institute is a leadership development company, and we don’t usually consider business books in these postings. And yet, as I see it, the Arbinger Institute’s contribution to the business world is to help people improve their relationships with others (yes, colleagues and employees, but also family and friends). 

And so, while this is technically a leadership book, don’t give it a second thought. If you want to improve your relationships wherever they are, this is an excellent resource

Here’s our format for this series. We will begin with five to seven key points from the section of the book we are discussing. If possible, I’ll throw in as many direct quotes as possible. In part 2, we discuss how these points may show themselves in our lives. Part 3 we will bring a brief theological or biblical perspective to bear on the discussion. And then, we will conclude with a few closing thoughts. Let’s begin.

Part 1: Key Points to Think About (Chapters 1-5)

  • The problem of being self-deceived is that it is a problem that is very powerful, and yet, we don’t know we have it.
  • “There’s a technical name for the insistent blindness [I have to my own self-righteous attitudes toward everyone else]. Philosophers call it ‘self-deception.’ We have a less technical name for it–we call it ‘being in the box.’ When we are self-deceived, we’re in the box.” 
  • One of our more serious faults is that we refuse to see people as people. Instead, we see them in terms of their impact on us. People become vehicles for our success, obstacles to our objectives, or simply irrelevant to us. When we do this, even when it appears that we are treating people properly (especially from our own perspective), we are using them for our own ends and treating them like objects. 
  • When you know a person cares about you, if they confront you about something, you do not feel as threatened. You know they have your best interests at heart. In other words, how another person “feels” about you shapes your response. And while we would all agree that is true when the other person cares about us, it is also true when they don’t. 
  • “We can tell how other people feel about us and it’s to that we respond.” In other words, if someone suspects we don’t have their best interests at heart, if someone feels we are only using them, or if someone questions our motives in coming to them, they will respond, not to how we hope they will perceive us, but to how we really feel about them.
  • One of the characters in the book said, “My words said, ‘I’m sorry,’ but my feelings didn’t. And it was the way I was feeling–revealed as it was through my voice, my gaze, my posture, my level of interest in her needs, and so on–it was that that she responded to.”
  • When people sense how we really feel about them–that we are manipulating or “handling’ them–then we provoke people to resist us.


Part 2: Show and Tell

For years, my mantra was “never underestimate the power of self-deception.” As mantras go, that wasn’t so bad. It is also very necessary. See, we all have this innate capacity to twist our view of reality so that it is favorable to us. It is a startling metamorphosis, but instead of turning green, we turn things on their heads so that we see ourselves as the good guys. But it is even better than that! Self-deception blinds us to our own faults, but enlarges the faults of others. It casts us as the victim and the other person as the assailant. And it justifies our actions and words as being necessary and helpful while it demonizes the actions and words of our enemy (who may very well also be our spouse, kids or good friend). Now, self-deception doesn’t always keep us away from harm, but it tries really hard and that’s why we love it (and that’s why we seldom talk about it–the less time in the spotlight, the more time it can spend protecting us from those who seek us harm (again, that may be our spouse, kids, friends, etc.). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone share about how bad their spouse is–how insensitive, selfish, stubborn and thoughtless (complete with examples from each category) and how good they are (for doing everything they can to bring resolve to the situation, also complete with examples) and all of was terribly, terribly skewed. They were completely self-deceived, but they had no idea. They were sure what they were saying was the gospel truth (it wasn’t even close). 

But you know this. Ninety-percent of the time, if you have a disagreement with your spouse, whose fault is it? Isn’t theirs. Of course, it is! Now, I will admit, it is a little disconcerting to find out that all those times I believed I was the victim, I was actually the assailant. Perhaps not completely (it does take two to tango), but because I know I am self-deceived and because I know I love seeing myself as the good guy, I have to be ready to accept that I have been the guilty party far more times than not. At least, I had a huge role to play in derailing things.  And in the moment, when I am sure my wife is to blame, the only reason I can’t see what is patently obvious to everyone else in the world, that I am the dirty culprit is because I am “in the box,” self-deceived. Now, perhaps she played her fair share and jumped in with both feet (because she also is self-deceived so we are both in our own individual boxes trying to blame each other), but the ignition switch was more than likely in my hand. 

Here’s what I think. Just knowing this has the potential to change how we relate to one another. Just being aware that we have the capacity to be self-deceived, and in fact, we love to be self-deceived ought to open the door to how we interact with each other. Never underestimate the power of self-deception. All that to say, self-deception is a serious problem, one that affects all of our relationships. We need this book.

 

Part 3: A Theological Thought

Jesus, in Matthew 13, is teaching in parables. His disciples don’t understand why he isn’t speaking plainly. Jesus responds that secrets of the kingdom are given to some, but not to others. And then, he describes these people from who the secrets are kept. He says (Mt. 13:14-15): 

“In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’”

Now clearly, Jesus’ words here do not describe people infected with self-deception, but the parallels are interesting. We hear people say things, but we twist it to serve our purposes. We see things, but we don’t perceive them because we believe that we are almost always right. Our hearts are hard, and so we don’t want to be confronted with any truth but our own. But the truth is, we are selfish, self-righteous and self-deceived. And worse, we are unloving. If the greatest commandment is to love God and love others, then the greatest sin is to ignore God and to use people and treat them like means to get what we want. Self-deception is a failure to love others. And that ruins our relationships.

 

Part 4: A Few Things to Think About

Here are four things to think about this week.

  1. When you find yourself in a disagreement, ask yourself how you played a role in starting it.
  2. How are you provoking people to resist you?
  3. How important is it to you to see yourself as being right? As being the good guy? As being innocent? 
  4. As you go through your week, be on the lookout for times when your self-deception may be at play and note when it happens. You may be surprised at how often it happens (or you could be totally self-deceived!).

More next week. The book gets even better from here!