Becoming Your Best “You” – Investments for Life
By Sterling Hawkins, MSW, LICSW, LCSW-C
If your life is a story, what do you tell others? And who will listen? I recently read True North Groups (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2011) by Bill George and Doug Baker, which addresses these human questions.
Bill George is a leading business executive and educator who has served as CEO to several international corporations and now is a consultant and on faculty at the Harvard Business School. Doug Baker is a teacher, consultant, and Army veteran, who also has leadership experience as both a sports coach and former CEO with the Pillsbury Company. The two businessmen began asking fundamental human questions: “Where do you go for advice and perspective when facing difficult decisions? Who can you count on to help you through the most challenging times? Who will be honest enough to point out your blind spots? Who would you talk to if you lost your job, your marriage was falling apart, or you faced a life-threatening illness?”
In 1975 Bill and Doug, along with two friends, formed a men’s group which continues to today. Then in 1982 they began a couples’ group with their spouses and two other couples. Combining their many years of experience, they led with the premise that “it is impossible to create a meaningful life alone,” and that the path toward meaningful growth involves the exchange of significant personal stories. Without this exchange, we cannot perform the work of living to which each of us has been called, nor sustain our mission and heal when we are wounded. They write, “Sharing intimately about things in our lives -- our happiness, sadness, our hopes and fears, our beliefs and convictions, enables us to become fully human and aware of the enormous possibilities within each of us."
The authors frame their belief within the context of leadership, as their goal is to challenge leaders to face their own vulnerability, and to avoid the tendency to be narcissistically guarded and inauthentic when challenged. These beliefs have application not just for those in leadership positions, but for anyone seeking personal growth.
While interviewing leaders for his 2007 book True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership, Bill George concluded that “one of the keys to sustaining your leadership is to have a support team around you.” This was cited as one of the most important things people can do to stay grounded and increase their self-awareness.
The 2007 book inspired development of a new elective course at the Harvard Business School to encourage greater interpersonal intimacy and more opportunities for personal sharing. The course involved the creation of six-member groups modeled after George and Baker’s men’s group. These groups became the template for True North Groups. To emphasize the value of such groups, the authors comment, “We are spending more time than ever before in organizations where we work, yet organizations in which we participate are ever larger and more impersonal. Few of the relationships formed in in these organizations provide opportunities for depth, openness, authenticity or personal development.” They go on to say that in in response this lack, to alleviate subsequent feelings of isolation, many people have substituted personal fitness, adult education, and individual therapy.
The authors write “We often discover deep conflicts between our personal desires and the expectations of our organizations. Yet, we do not know how to resolve these conflicts, nor do we have a safe place to discuss them. . . Left to ourselves with no counsel or advice we are prone to make bad decisions. . . Without people we trust to point out blind spots, we may be attempting to journey through life without recognizing our shortcomings or seeing ourselves as others see us.”
As a therapist, what appeals to me about the book is the authors’ recognition of biopsychosocial factors that contribute to developing authenticity in the self. Without this development we remain incomplete, immature, lacking depth. George and Baker have been at this for a long time and have been able to construct an approach in examining what helps or hinders us; they do this by identifying critical factors in the development of character and purpose of some of the most successful industry leaders in the nation. In short, they answer the questions, what do others really think about us? How do we know if what we’re doing in life really matters, and if so why? The solution for them is that we cannot discover these answers from looking inward. Instead we must look outside of ourselves to those who can see us in ways that we cannot see ourselves.
A support group of this type is structured to peel back the layers which prevent transparency and self-reflection. Hiding or masking our true self is often rooted in the fear that if we are truly known, others would dismiss us, fail to like us, or, worst, exploit our weaknesses. The false self develops as a means of survival, which generalizes to become an unconscious response to those people and circumstances that endanger us, even when there is no actual threat.
The book emphasizes the importance of establishing trust and accountability as a way to heal the damage caused by environments which have crippled our capacity to fully engage and become known. When trust is strong, the need for masking or self-protection dissipates. This approach, which uses ethical principles designed to build integrity, is most effective when consciously, consistently applied within a nurturing and stable community. Under these conditions, personal growth flourishes.
The authors could have included more about their research method and the tools used to formulate their conclusions. This would have been helpful to those seeking to replicate similar studies within their own groups. Nonetheless, their approach gives those of us who facilitate groups insight into overlooked elements of group dynamics with broad therapeutic application.
I recommend this book as a resource for anyone looking to embrace human vulnerability as a pathway toward becoming stronger in both their organizational groups and interpersonal relationships.