16 Box Problems

“Do you remember my experience in San Francisco?” Bud asked.

“Yeah.”

“Remember the problems I had there? How I wasn’t engaged, wasn’t committed, and was making things more difficult for others?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Bud erased everything that had been written next to the self-betrayal diagram. Then he wrote the following:

Lack of commitment
Lack of engagement
Troublemaking

“Okay, here are a few of the problems I had in San Francisco,” he said, as he stepped back from the board. “My ‘symptoms,’ as it were. But let’s add as many kinds of problems to this list as we can. What are some other common people problems in organizations?”

“Conflict,” I said. “Lack of motivation.”

“Stress,” Kate added.

“Poor teamwork,” I said.

“Hold on a minute,” said Bud, writing furiously. “I’m trying to get them all up here. Okay, go ahead. What else?”

“Backbiting, alignment problems, lack of trust,” Kate said.

“Lack of accountability,” I offered. “Bad attitudes. Communication problems.”

“Okay, good,” Bud said, finishing the last few. “That’s a good enough list. Now let’s take a look and compare it with the story right over here where I failed to get up and tend to my child.”

“Notice: Did I have a commitment or engagement problem after I betrayed myself?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“But how about before? Did I have a commitment or engagement problem when I just had the feeling to get up and tend to David so that Nancy could sleep?”

“No. Not at all,” I said.

“How about making things more difficult for others? Was I making things more difficult for Nancy when I just had the feeling to help her?”

“No,” I answered, “only after you betrayed yourself.”

“That’s right. And how about conflict — and stress? When do you suppose I was more stressed — when I just felt I should help Nancy or after I betrayed myself and was inflating the importance of the things I had to do the next morning?”

“Oh, after you betrayed yourself, for sure. Same with conflict. You felt no conflict before you betrayed yourself, only after.”

“That’s right,” Bud agreed. “You can go down all of these people problems, and what you’ll find is that they all existed after I betrayed myself but not before.”

Bud paused, giving me a chance to look at the list and see for myself. Then he asked, “Which means what?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Well, I had all of these people problems after I betrayed myself but not before. Which means what?”

“Which means … uh … oh. Which means that they were caused by your self-betrayal,” I finally said.

“Exactly, Tom. I didn’t have those problems before I betrayed myself, only after. So the solution to the self-betrayal problem is the solution to all of those people problems.”

Bud paused again, giving me time to digest the idea. Then he continued, “Remember how I said that, like Semmelweis’s medical discovery, the solution to the self-deception problem amounts to a sort of unifying theory — a theory that shows that the various disparate problems we call ‘people problems’ really all have the same cause?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, here’s what I meant. Right here,” he said, pointing to the diagram. “This simple story shows how it happens. Self-betrayal is the germ that creates the disease of self-deception. And, like childbed fever, self-deception has many different symptoms — from lack of motivation and commitment to stress and communication problems. Organizations die, or are severely crippled, by those symptoms. And that happens because those who carry the germ don’t know they’re carrying it.”

I thought about the import of that for a moment, studying the diagram. “But is it always the same in business? I mean, after all, your example is about failing to get up to tend to a baby. That’s not what’s happening at work.”

“That’s true,” he said. “You’re right that the people at work aren’t betraying themselves quite this way—no one is failing to tend to a baby. However, a lot of people are failing to do things for coworkers that they feel they should do, and they feel justified every time that happens, just like in this example. Every time we betray ourselves, we go in the box, and it doesn’t matter whether we betray ourselves at home, at work, at the store, or wherever. The box — self-deception — will itself cause all the same kinds of problems in every one of those situations that it caused in this one.

“But there’s something else,” he continued. “There’s a particular self-betrayal that almost everyone engages in at work to one degree or another, a self-betrayal concerning the very purpose of what we were hired to do — to focus on helping the organization and its people to achieve results. The key to solving most of the people problems that afflict organizations is in discovering how we can solve this central workplace self-betrayal.”

“So how do you?” I asked eagerly.

“Ah, we’re not quite ready to understand that yet. We have a few more ideas to consider first. But maybe we should take a break before we get to it.”

Kate glanced at her watch. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave, guys. I have a 4:30 with Howard Chen. I wish I didn’t have to. Tom,” she said, rising from her chair and extending her hand to me. “It’s been a real pleasure spending this time with you. I appreciate how seriously you’re taking this. As I said before, there’s nothing more important to us around here than what you’re now learning. It’s Zagrum’s number one strategic initiative. You’ll understand what that means as you get into what comes next.”

“What do you think?” she said, turning to Bud. “Are you going to try to finish up the basics tonight?”

“If so, we’ll be going a little late. Tom and I will have to talk about it.”

“Sounds good,” Kate said as she started for the door. “By the way, Tom,” she said, turning back to me, “I left Zagrum once. It was a very different company then.”

“Why did you leave?” I asked.

“Because of Lou Herbert.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected. “Really? I thought you and Lou were really tight.”

“Not in the early days. Lou wasn’t tight with anybody then. A lot of good people left.”

“Then why’d you come back?”

“Because of Lou,” she said.

I was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Lou found this material — the material you’re learning now—and it transformed him. And in transforming him, it transformed the company. When he came to see me, he came to apologize, and he came with a plan. I’ve worked for Zagrum twice, but it might as well have been two different companies. You’re learning about the need to apologize, like Lou. And you’ll soon learn about the plan that follows from it. As I told you before, everything we do here is built on what you’re learning. It’s what makes this place tick.”

She paused. “We’re glad you’re part of the team, Tom. You wouldn’t be here unless we believed in you.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“And thank you, Bud,” she said, turning in his direction. “You never cease to amaze me.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, chuckling.

“I’m talking about what you mean to the company and the people in it. You’re just like Lou became after he got his act together. You’re Zagrum’s secret weapon.”

Kate smiled and headed toward the door. “Anyway, thanks,” she said as she walked out. “And keep rooting for the Cardinals — both of you. Yes, even you, Bud,” she said, responding to his frown. “Heaven knows, they need the help.”

“Wow,” I said to no one in particular, after Kate left. “I can’t believe she took all that time to be with me today.”

“Believe me,” said Bud, “you don’t know the half of it. She has tremendous demands on her time. But she comes whenever she can. And she comes because what we’re now embarked on produces more results for this company than any other single thing we do. Her attendance is her way of saying, ‘We’re serious about this. And if you aren’t, you won’t stay long.’ ”

Bud patted me on the back. “It’s the same thing for me, Tom. People who persist in being in the box don’t make it here, and that’s no less true of me than it is of you. We’re in this together.” He chuckled reassuringly. All I could think of, however, was Todd and Laura.

“Well, Tom,” he said, signaling a change in topic, “we have a decision to make. We have a few more hours to go before we’re through with the basics. And we can either finish tonight or meet again tomorrow, if that’s possible for you.”

I thought about my schedule. I had a full afternoon but could clear my morning schedule. “I think I’d prefer tomorrow morning.”

“Good enough. Let’s say 8 AM. And if I can arrange it, I might even have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?”

“Yeah. If we’re lucky.”

The warm August wind blew through my hair as I turned my convertible from Long Ridge Road east onto Merritt Parkway. I had a wife and son who needed some attention, perhaps even some apologies. I hardly knew where to begin. But I knew that Todd liked working on cars—an interest I had ridiculed whenever I could, out of fear that “Tom Callum’s boy” would grow up to be a mechanic. And I also knew that Laura hadn’t had a meal prepared for her in months. I had decided to pick up items for a barbecue, and I was feeling the desire to learn a thing or two about tuning engines.

For the first time in years, I was in a hurry to get home.