THREE
A LOPSIDED SCIENCE
LEADERS HAVE a hard time coming to grips with difficult us-and- them situations, in part because they often assume that it is natural for different groups to be at odds with each other. Although this seems to be pretty obvious and amply borne out by history, it is actually not a scientifically well-grounded fact, but often more of an assumption. As I will show in this chapter, there has been more than a little of seeing what you expected to see and seeing what you were looking for in the scientific study of us-and-them relations. This selective perception is one factor underlying the gap in us-and-them leadership. It amounts to a pattern of choices that led to the sidelining of truly positive us-and-them relations.
Get Us Plus Them now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
