The Outward Mindset Quotes

“If we don’t measure the impact of our efforts on the objectives of those we are serving, we will remain blind to important ways we need to adjust and will end up not serving others well.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“Developing an outward mindset is a matter of learning to see beyond ourselves. Our hope for you, the reader, is that this book will make such mindset change completely tangible to you and that you will achieve the results at work and at home that only an outward mindset can bring.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“mindset drives and shapes all that we do—how we engage with others and how we behave in every moment and situation.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“no problem could be solved if individuals were not willing to address how they themselves were part of the problem.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“This book is about the difference between a self-focused inward mindset and an others-inclusive outward mindset. It will help you become more outward in your work, your leadership, and your life. It will guide you in building more innovative and collaborative teams and organizations. And it will help you see why you like many of the people you do and what you can do to become more like them.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“the simple idea that behaviors drive results.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“when I try to impose my ideas on others and thereby refuse to allow them to think, I end up getting in the way more than I end up being helpful.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“At the end of the day, my leadership effectiveness is measured not by what I am able to accomplish, but by what those whom I lead are able to accomplish.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“When people focus on themselves rather than on their impact, lots of activity and effort get wasted on the wrong things.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“The energy-draining, time-wasting, silo-creating effect of this justification seeking is one of the most debilitating of organizational problems.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“Seeing people as people rather than as objects enables better thinking because such thinking is done in response to the truth: others really are people and not objects.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“With an inward mindset, on the other hand, I become self-focused and see others not as people with their own needs, objectives, and challenges but as objects to help me with mine. Those that can help me, I see as vehicles. Those that make things more difficult for me, I see as obstacles. Those whose help wouldn’t matter become irrelevant to me.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“while behaviors drive results, behaviors themselves are informed and shaped by one’s mindset.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“organizational improvement, even turnaround, is less a matter of getting the wrong people off the bus than a matter of helping people see. It is a matter of changing mindset.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“the biggest lever for change is not a change in self-belief but a fundamental change in the way one sees and regards one’s connections with and obligations to others.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves

“When we average the results across industries, people rate their colleagues at 4.6 on the continuum and themselves at 6.8. Think about what this means: on average, all employees in an organization think they are nearly 50 percent better—more collaborative and less blameworthy—than their coworkers. So what happens when problems arise? Those who think they are 7s look around and wait for all the 4s to change. The trouble is, all those 4s think they, too, are 7s! So everyone waits—and blames. This is a manifestation of the problem of self-deception that we wrote about in Leadership and Self-Deception.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Outwardness does to inwardness what light does to darkness: it chases it away.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Hiring and onboarding approaches, sales and marketing processes, budgeting practices, incentive structures, performance evaluation and management systems, and every other organizational system, structure, and process can be conceived and deployed in inward-mindset or outward-mindset ways. Organizations that are serious about operating with an outward mindset turn these systems and processes outward to invite and reinforce outward-mindset working.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“When leaders begin to take seriously the project of not taking themselves too seriously and begin collapsing the distinctions between themselves and others, they are positioned to begin scaling mindset change.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“A good rule of thumb is that an organization is ready to deploy mindset-change efforts to the next level in an organization when those in the next level are seeing real change in the level above. Leaders demonstrate noticeable change as they begin questioning the privileges they reserve for themselves. To prompt such helpful changes, leaders could begin asking themselves questions like these: Do we need the prime parking spots? The best office spaces? Do we segregate ourselves in different cafeterias or more preferred parts of the building? Can perks that the few enjoy be made available to others? Can any trappings of “bigshotness” be removed? If we treat and pay ourselves generously, are we appropriately generous as well with our employees? And so on.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“my leadership effectiveness is measured not by what I am able to accomplish but by what those whom I lead are able to accomplish.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“I learned that when people came up with an idea, it was important to allow that idea to grow and be implemented. As long as an idea didn’t take us backward or cause harm, the organization benefited more when the team members were allowed to implement their idea and discover how it could be improved than when I just tried to get them to implement my idea. I was constantly surprised by how many times I discovered that others’ ideas turned out to be much better than mine and by the increased energy people brought to their work when they were empowered to implement their own ideas.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Clarifying the collective result enables individuals and teams to improve their contributions within the organization without waiting for directives from those who have a broader view of the organization’s interconnected parts. With this understanding, people don’t require someone to align their roles relative to others; they can do this themselves. Imagine an organization of self-aligning individuals and teams who take responsibility for implementing the outward-mindset pattern, constantly adjusting what they do to ensure that their impact contributes to the accomplishment of the collective result. Every individual can decide to be this kind of contributor.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Ask yourself the following questions: Have I (or we) thought this through with an outward mindset? Do I understand the needs, objectives, and challenges of those involved? Have I adjusted my efforts in light of those issues? And have I been holding myself accountable for my impact on these people? Have you considered what mindset-level changes might be necessary in addition to behavioral changes?”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Remember, the principle to apply is, as far as I am concerned, the problem is me. I am the place to start. Others’ responses will depend mostly on what they see in me. The most important move is for me to make the most important move.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“A related reason why people resist making the most important move is that they think an outward mindset will make them soft when hard behavior is required. But this is a misunderstanding. As we’ve said, an outward mindset doesn’t make people soft; it just makes them open, curious, and aware. Similarly, an inward mindset doesn’t make people hard. In fact, people whose mindsets are inward often engage in behaviors that are softer than would actually be helpful.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“In fact, what obscures vision and exposes people to more risk is not an outward mindset, which stays fully alive to and aware of others, but an inward one, which turns its attention away from others while simultaneously provoking resistance.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“being able to operate with an outward mindset when others do not is a critically important ability. It is the most important move.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“Would our organizations be better off if all of us were to turn outward in our work with each other? Yes. But this preferred state can be reached only if some are willing to change even when others do not—and to sustain the change whether or not others reciprocate.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations

“The most important move consists of my putting down my resistance and beginning to act in the way I want the other person to act.”
― The Arbinger Institute, The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations