20 Dead Ends
“To begin with,” Lou continued, “it helps to understand how we don’t get out of the box.”
He wrote on the board, “What doesn’t work in the box.” Turning back to me, he said, “Think about the things we try to do when we’re in the box. For example, in the box, whom do we think has the problem?”
“Others,” I answered.
“That’s right,” he said, “so normally we spend a lot of energy in the box trying to change others. But does that work? Does that get us out of the box?”
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because that’s the problem in the first place,” I said. “I’m trying to change them because, in the box, I think they need to be changed.”
“But does that mean no one needs to be changed?” Lou asked. “Is everyone doing things just perfectly, then? Is that what you’re saying—that no one needs to improve?”
I felt a little stupid when he asked the question. Come on, Callum, I said to myself. Think! I wasn’t being careful enough. “No, of course not. Everyone needs to improve.”
“Then why not the other guy?” he said. “What’s wrong if I want him to improve?”
That was a good question. What is wrong with that? I asked myself. I thought that was what all this meant, but at that moment I wasn’t so certain. “I’m not sure,” I said.
“Well, think about it this way. While it’s true that others may have problems they need to solve, are their problems the reason I’m in the box?”
“No. That’s what you think in the box, but it’s a misperception.”
“Exactly,” said Lou. “So even if I were successful and the person I tried to change actually changed, would that solve the problem of my being in the box?”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t.”
“That’s right, it wouldn’t—even if the other person actually did change.”
“And it’s worse than that,” Bud interjected. “Think about what we talked about yesterday regarding collusion: When I’m in the box and try to get others to change, do I invite them to change as I’d like?”
“No,” I said. “You end up provoking just the opposite.”
“Exactly right,” Bud said. “My box ends up provoking more of the very thing I set out to change. So if I try to get out by changing others, I end up provoking others to give me reason to stay in the box.”
“So,” Lou said, turning to the board and writing, “trying to change others doesn’t work.”
What doesn’t work in the box
1. Trying to change others
“What about doing my best to cope with others?” Lou said, turning from the board. “Does that work?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” I said. “That’s essentially what I usually do. But it doesn’t seem to get me out.”
“That’s right, it doesn’t,” Lou agreed. “And there’s a simple reason why. ‘Coping’ has the same deficiency as trying to change the other person: It’s just another way to continue blaming. It communicates the blame of my box, which invites those I’m coping with to be in their boxes.”
He turned to the board and added “coping” to the list of things that didn’t work.
What doesn’t work in the box
1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
“How about this one?” Bud added while Lou was writing. “Leaving. Does leaving work? Will that get me out of the box?”
“Maybe,” I said. “It seems like it might sometimes.”
“Well, let’s think about it. Where do I think the problem is when I’m in the box?”
“In others,” I said.
“Exactly. But where in fact is the problem when I’m in the box?”
“In myself.”
“Yes. So if I leave, what goes with me?” he asked.
“The problem,” I said softly, nodding. “I get it. The box goes with me.”
“That’s right,” Bud said. “In the box, leaving is just another way to blame. It’s just a continuation of my box. I take my self-justifying feelings with me. Now it may be that in certain situations, leaving is the right thing to do. But leaving a situation will never be sufficient, even if right. Ultimately, I have to leave my box too.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said.
“Here, let me add that to the list,” Lou said.
What doesn’t work in the box
1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
3. Leaving
“Here’s another one to consider,” said Lou. “How about communicating? Will that work? Will that get me out of the box?”
“It seems like it would,” I said. “I mean, if you can’t communicate, you don’t have anything.”
“Okay,” said Lou, “let’s consider this one carefully.” He looked at the board. “Whose story is this over here about self-betrayal—is it yours, Bud?”
“Yes,” Bud nodded.
“Oh yes, I see Nancy’s name there,” said Lou. “Okay, let’s think about it. Look here, Tom, at Bud’s story. After he betrayed himself, here’s how he saw Nancy—as lazy, inconsiderate, insensitive, and so on. Now here’s the question. If he tries to communicate with Nancy now, while he’s in his box, what’s he going to communicate?”
“Oh,” I said, surprised by the implication. “He’s going to communicate what he’s feeling about her—namely, that she’s all of those bad things.”
“Exactly. And will that help? Is Bud likely to get out of the box by telling his wife that she’s all the lousy things he’s thinking she is when he’s in the box?”
“No,” I said. “But what if he’s a little more sophisticated than that? I mean, with a little skill, he might be able to communicate more subtly and not just come right out and blast away.”
“That’s true,” Lou agreed. “But remember, if Bud’s in the box, then he’s blaming. It’s true he may be able to acquire some skills that would improve his communication techniques, but do you suppose those skills would hide his blame?”
“No, I suppose not,” I said.
“That’s the way it seems to me too,” agreed Lou. “In the box, whether I’m a skilled communicator or not, I end up communicating my box—and that’s the problem.”
He turned and added “communicating” to the list.
What doesn’t work in the box
1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
3. Leaving
4. Communicating
“In fact,” he said, backing away from the board, “this point about skills applies to skills generally, not just to communication skills. You might think about it this way: No matter what skill you teach me, I can be either in the box or out of the box when I implement it. And that raises this question: Will using a skill in the box be the way to get out of the box?”
“No,” I said, “I guess not.”
“That’s why skill training in nontechnical areas often has so little lasting impact,” Lou said. “Helpful skills and techniques aren’t very helpful if they’re done in the box. They just provide people with more-sophisticated ways to blame.”
“And remember, Tom,” added Bud, “the people problems that most people try to correct with skills aren’t due to a lack of skill at all. They’re due to self-betrayal. People problems seem intractable not because they are insoluble but because the common skill interventions are not themselves solutions.”
“That’s exactly right,” agreed Lou. “So,” he said, turning and writing again, “we can’t get out of the box simply by implementing new skills and techniques.”
What doesn’t work in the box
1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
3. Leaving
4. Communicating
5. Implementing new skills or techniques
I looked at the board and suddenly felt depressed. What is left? I thought.
“There’s one more possibility we should consider,” said Bud. “Here it is: What if I try to change myself—my behavior? Can that get me out of the box?”
“It looks like that’s the only thing that can get you out,” I answered.
“This is tricky, but quite important.” Bud stood up and started to pace. “Let’s think back to a couple of the stories we talked about yesterday. . . . Remember the situation I told you about Gabe and Leon over in Building 6?”
I searched my memory. “I’m not sure.”
“Gabe had tried doing all kinds of things to let Leon know he was concerned about him.”
“Oh yeah, I remember.”
“Well,” he continued, “Gabe had changed his behavior toward Leon dramatically. But did that work?”
“And why not?”
“Because, as I recall, Gabe didn’t really care about Leon, and that’s what Leon understood despite all of Gabe’s outward changes.”
“Exactly. Since Gabe was in the box toward Leon, every new thing Gabe tried to do from within his box just amounted to a change within the box. Leon remained an object to him throughout all his efforts.
“Think about that,” Bud said with emphasis. “Or think about the story where Nancy and I were arguing but I tried to apologize and put an end to it. Do you remember?”
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“It’s the same thing,” he said, taking his seat. “I changed myself in a radical way in that case: I changed all the way from arguing to kissing. But did that change get me out of the box?”
“No, because you didn’t really mean it,” I answered. “You were still in the box.”
“And that’s just the point,” Bud said, leaning toward me. “Because I was in the box, I couldn’t mean it. In the box, every change I can think of is just a change in my style of being in the box. I can change from arguing to kissing. I can change from ignoring someone to going out of my way to shower that person with attention. But whatever changes I think of in the box are changes I think of from within the box, and they are therefore just more of the box—which is the problem in the first place. Others remain objects to me.”
“That’s right,” Lou said, moving to the board. “So consider the implication, Tom. I can’t get out of the box merely by changing my behavior.”
1. Trying to change others
2. Doing my best to “cope” with others
3. Leaving
4. Communicating
5. Implementing new skills or techniques
6. Changing my behavior
“But wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me that I can’t get out by trying to change others or by doing my best to cope with others or by leaving, communicating, or implementing new skills and techniques. And then you’re telling me on top of that that I can’t even get out of the box by changing myself?”
“Well, you can’t get out by continuing to focus on yourself—which is what you do when you try to change your behavior in the box. So yes, that is what we’re saying,” he answered calmly.
“Then how could we ever get out? I mean, if what you’re saying is right, then there’s no way out. We’re all stuck.”
“Actually,” Lou said, “that’s not quite right. There is a way out, but it’s different than anyone generally supposes. And you know what it is, just like I told you before. You just don’t realize that you know it.”
I was listening intently. I wanted to understand this.
“You were out of the box last night toward your family, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, by the way you told your story, it sounded like you were,” Lou said. “That means there is a way out. So let’s think of your experience last night. Did you try to change your wife and son last night?”
“No.”
“Did you feel like you were ‘coping’ with them?”
“No.”
“And obviously you didn’t leave. How about communicating? Did you get out because you communicated?”
“Well, maybe. I mean, we communicated very well—the best we’d done in a long time.”
“Yes,” Lou agreed, “but did you get out of the box because you communicated, or did you communicate well because you were out of the box?”
“Let me think,” I said, more puzzled than ever. “I was already out of the box—I was out of the box on my way home. Communicating isn’t what got me out, I guess.”
“Okay, then how about this last one?” Lou said, pointing at the list. “Did you get out of the box because you focused on and tried to change yourself?”
I sat there wondering, What happened to me yesterday? It ended in a magnificent evening, but I suddenly had no idea how I had gotten there. It was like I’d been abducted by aliens. Did I set out to change myself? That wasn’t my memory. It felt more like something changed me. At least, I couldn’t remember setting out to change. In fact, if anything, it seemed that along the whole way, I resisted the suggestion that I had to change. So what happened? How did I get out of the box? Why did my feelings change?
“I’m not sure,” I said finally. “But I don’t remember trying to change myself. Somehow, I just ended up changed— almost like something changed me. But I’m clueless as to how it happened.”
“Here’s something that might help you figure it out,” Bud said. “Remember when we talked yesterday about how the distinction between being in the box and being out of the box is deeper than behavior?”
“Yeah, I remember that,” I said.
“And we discussed the airplane-seating story, drew that diagram with behaviors up on top, and talked about how we can do almost any behavior in one of those two ways—either out of the box or in the box. Remember?”
“Yes.”
“So consider this: If being in or out of the box is something that’s deeper than behavior, do you suppose the key to getting out of the box will be a behavior?”
I started to see what he was saying. “No, I guess it wouldn’t,” I said, suddenly feeling hopeful that this thought would lead me to the answer.
“That’s right,” Bud said. “One of the reasons you may be struggling to understand how you got out of the box is that you’re trying to identify a behavior that got you out. But since the box itself is deeper than behavior, the way out of the box has to be deeper than behavior, too. Almost any behavior can be done either in the box or out of the box, so no mere behavior can get you out. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“In other words,” Lou interjected, “there’s a fundamental problem with the question, ‘What do I need to do to get out of the box?’ The problem is that anything I tell you to do can be done either in or out of the box. And if done in the box, that ‘in-the-box’ behavior can’t be the way to get out. So you might then be tempted to say, ‘Well, the answer, then, is to do that behavior out of the box.’ Fair enough. But if you’re out of the box, then you won’t need the behavior anymore to get you out. Either way, the behavior isn’t what gets you out. It’s something else.”
“But what?” I pleaded.
“Something right in front of you.”