In any given moment, I am either alive to other people's reality or I am not, and everything else - including my thinking, my values, my principles, my behavior - will depend on this pivotal issue. If my heart is alive to others, everything else I do will reflect that. (adapted, "No Other Way: The Source of Hope for Organizations of the Future")

The parts of our psychological history that make a difference now do not reside in the past. They are present. It is our *presently* held story of the past that is our bondage or our freedom. (C. Terry Warner, Bonds That Make Us Free, pp. 288-289)

The surprising, counter-intuitive core of Arbinger's foundational work: "I think I am resisting others because they have mistreated me. But the truth is: I resist others because I have mistreated them." (The Choice)

In the long term and very often in the short one, people respond more energetically, think more clearly, work more joyfully, and build more wisely, when they put one another ahead of self. (C. Terry Warner)

Lasting solutions to the battles in our workplaces, homes, and battlefields will come only as we end the war in our own souls... Peace - whether at home, work, or between people - is invited only when an intelligent outward strategy is married to a peaceful inward one. (The Anatomy of Peace)

We begin to get out of our own & each other's way in the very moment we open ourselves to each other's humanity.
We have felt like we've needed to see each other as objects in order to survive, when the truth is, our seeing each other as objects puts our survival at risk.
(Reflections of a participant after Israelis and Palestinians gathered for Arbinger training)

Excellent video - a wonderful reminder of what the principles are all about.

Why we should all admit (and embrace) being wrong: Attachment to our own rightness keeps us from preventing mistakes when we absolutely need to, and causes us to treat each other terribly. (Kathryn Schulz, "On Being Wrong")

The unsympathetic assessments we make of others are usually the result of nothing more sinister than our habit of looking at them in the wrong way, through lenses clouded by distraction, exhaustion and fear, which blind us to the fact that they are really, despite a thousand differences, just altered versions of ourselves: fellow fragile, uncertain, flawed beings likewise craving love and in urgent need of forgiveness. (Alain de Botton)

Watch week 7 and then answer the following: Identify 1 person who will be affected by my work today. What information could I gather, or change I could make that would help them today? Do it!

The paradoxical reality of helping others: Other people do have problems and shortcomings. Yes. And remember: so do I. I am as imperfect as the people I desire to help. I will invite change in others only to the degree I am pressing for it within myself. I can help others with their challenges only as I am working on my own. (The Arbinger Institute)

If we had no faults of our own, we would not take so much pleasure in noticing those of others. (La Rochefoucauld)

The recovery of emotional freedom: When I am able to simply be myself rather than focus on myself -- to stand self-forgetfully. (C. Terry Warner)

A self is the pattern of responses to everyone and everything around us.
How we see others is who we are.
How we respond to them is who we are.
If we cherish them, we are loving.
We cannot describe others without revealing who we are.
(C. Terry Warner)

It is important to try to appreciate how engulfing, how completely blinding self-deception is. We don't set out deliberately to mistreat or provoke others - we see them *in the first place* as deserving this treatment. Our very perception of others is part of the lie we live... Self-betrayal is in the seeing. It always is. (C. Terry Warner, 'Feelings, Self-Deception, and Change')

As leaders it is worth considering reducing time spent supervising and holding our direct reports accountable for their work and results.

My view even of myself depends on which way I see others... How others seem to me is a revelation of myself. The self cannot be pried apart from how I see and feel about others. (Bonds That Make Us Free)

Letting go of what we think we must have to be happy is the same as letting go of our unhappiness. (Guy Finley)

In a public medical group that adopted Arbinger's work, the leadership team was conducting an investigation into a case in which a patient died after he had sought medical consultation more than a week ago. The patient was sent home to wait for the lab test result as his blood sample was taken at the end of the clinic's operating hours. If the lab test results are normal, no action is needed till the patient's next visit to the clinic. However, if the lab test results are abnormal which imply that immediate and urgent medical attention is needed for doctors to conduct medical intervention or investigations, the clinic then must follow certain standard operating procedures (SOP) for what is termed as "Critical Lab Results" SOP.

This process involved calling the patient and trying to reach him or his family to seek medical consultation as soon as possible. The SOP spells out specific steps and measures to take, for example, first by phone contact, if the patient was still not reachable after 3 attempts, the "critical lab test result" will be mailed to the address of the patient. Under the SOP, there is no requirement for the clinic management to take necessary step to check whether the patient receives the letter or he actually seeks medical consultation. All goals and targets set for various steps in the SOP focus on the clinic's roles and what they ought to do and not the outcome of what they do.

In the case concerned, the patient who had abnormal critical lab test result was sent home on a Saturday afternoon after his blood sample was taken when it was near the clinic's closing time. Unfortunately, when the abnormal result came out the next day which was a Sunday. When the clinic staff made three failed attempts to contact the patient on Monday, the next step was to mail the critical lab test results to the patient's residence. As there was a public holiday within that week and aggravated by delay in delivering the letter to mail room, the letter was only mailed out and reached the patient's residence a week after his last clinic consultation. The clinic subsequently received a call from the son of the patient, saying that their father had passed away a few days after his clinic consultation while waiting for the lab test results. The letter was received a day after the patient's funeral wake.

The leadership team convened its inquiry and wanted to prevent this from happening again. The question they had to confront was, "if we are truly seeing our patients as people, what should my responsibility and therefore the outcome be?" In the discussion, they realised that seeing patients as people required them to reframe their previous goals measuring specific steps they do like making phone calls, sending out mailers etc. to specific outcome they want as a result of what they do i.e. "Ensuring all "critical lab test" patients receive medical attention within a reasonable time frame (48 hours) from their time of clinic consultation"

The shift fundamentally re-oriented the way they would approach patients who had abnormal lab test results. Clinic management team therefore must assume their own responsibility (self accountability) to ensure whatever steps or measures they take for all critical lab result cases, their only goal is to ensure patients must receive medical attention within 48 hours from the time of last clinic consultation. After reframing the mind set to set outcome goal for all critical lab result cases, the management is able to track and monitor monthly how many critical lab result patients sought medical attention within 48 hours and how many did not and why

Take a look at the week 6 video and wait for the questions at the end.