Our Genius Paradigm book group is discussing “The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict” by the Arbinger Institute for our August 18, 2020 meeting. (If you would like to sign up JOIN HERE.) Before a book discussion, I look up information about the author to help me get additional insights into the book. This book doesn’t have an individual author. It was written by an “institute.” This makes me think of many questions. What does this Institute do? Who are the members? Why couldn’t one of the leaders write the book rather than have it be a group effort? How long has this organization been around? Etc. So I took a little time and did some research. What I found was pretty interesting!
The Arbinger Institute was started in 1979 by Dr. C. Terry Warner. He is a professor emeritus at BYU and taught Stephen Covey, who wrote “7 Habits”. His work on self-deception is used for the Arbinger Institutes leadership and organizational management courses and mentoring.
When I went to The Arbinger Institute’s website, I was excited to see the word mindset. I’ve read Carol Dweck’s fixed and growth mindset research and have gotten a lot out of it. This idea of mindset was a bit different but still related.
Dweck’s fixed and growth mindset refers to our ability to learn, or at least our perception of ourselves being able to learn. It is based on the fact that everyone can grow; it is only our belief that we can’t that limits us. Warner’s work on self-deception led to the Institute’s work on inward and outward mindsets. With an inward mindset, we do not work with others in productive ways are more apt to generalize about people and their ideas, making them less human. This is a very limiting and false way of seeing things and is based on the self-deception that Dr. Warner studied. The better mindset is outward, where “we can collectively achieve something much bigger than ourselves.”
The root cause of most organizational problems is that employees often unknowingly work with an inward mindset, focusing on their own needs, challenges, and objectives without an awareness of their impact on others. Organizations can only resolve internal problems and achieve breakthrough results by maximizing the extent to which their employees work with an outward mindset, taking into account their impact on others and focusing on the needs of the organization as a whole. With an outward mindset, organizations are far better prepared to address their challenges and achieve superior results.
The Arbinger Institute website
So, why is this book written by an institute rather than individual authors? The outward mindset. It is not one person that makes a difference; many work together for a common goal. As I read “The Anatomy of Peace,” I am excited to be working with others to see each other as individuals, not on one side or another. Let’s all work towards peace.