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About Steve Roesler:

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I'm Steve Roesler, the guy behind the blog. Let me take a moment to give you a glimpse of who I am before telling the business story. I am married to "B" and we live 20 miles from Philadelphia in a tranquil, wooded area surrounded by lakes. (We don't live in the woods because we were asked to leave the city--we just like it here). It's a welcome break from the many days of international and domestic travel that are a part of the consulting business. I incorporated the Organization Effectiveness firm Roesler Group in 1977, specializing in communication training and development with an emphasis on improving systems, relationships, and large-scale change. My deep interest in the global nature of business and business relationships led me to a 2-year assignment with Saudi Arabian Airlines. What that really entailed was spending lengths of time developing up-and-coming managers in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Upon returning to the US I developed a clientele which has included American Express, AstraZeneca, AT&T, Batelle Labs, Computer Sciences Corporation, PECO Energy, Johnson & Johnson, Minerals Technologies, Specialty Minerals Europe and Pfizer, in addition to other for-profit corporations. Relationships within many of those firms have led to other interesting engagements with non-profits as well as church denominations. Clients are located worldwide. In addition to my Roesler Group enterprise, I've worked internally as a Manager of Management Development at Pfizer and as a Regional VP of Sales for a global training company. Prior to that I served as a Drill Instructor in the Army, musician and singer (still going strong--once you start you can't stop), and have been involved in broadcasting for more than 30 years. I'm also a co-author of "The Age of Conversation". Most of my engagements turn into long-time relationships although they start as a single project. These projects have included leading executive and cultural transitions within corporations; creating/leading leadership programs for client companies; preparing managers and executives to deliver presentations; serving as mediator for conflicts between high-level executives within organizations; and creating and leading a CEO selection process for a NYSE company. Steve Roesler Learning also continues to design and conduct organizational and management development programs on-site for clients. I am a graduate of Rowan University with an M.A. in Public Relations/Communications. I've attended various institutes for the study of human behavior, none of which equals a single day's education watching people at an airport check-in line. Over the years I've served on staff at the NTL Institute for the Applied Behavioral Sciences as well as the Wharton Executive Program.

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What About Self-Deception At Work?

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Posted October 28, 2009 with 175 reads

Keywords: Managing People, self-deception

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You know about this.

You're at work and Jerry in Marketing is a pain in the butt. Jerry got 87 pieces of 360 feedback that told him he is a pain in the butt. What does Jerry say?

"I am committed to my belief system."

In Jerry's case, that appears to be some secret code phrase for "Regardless of what you show me, I will ignore your evidence and bless you with my unbending wonderfulness."

When asked about the 87 pieces of consistent feedback, Jerry laments that he is misunderstood. By 87 people. All the time.

The Truth About Self-Deception

Thankfully, WE aren't like Jerry. Or are we?

The folks at one of my faves, PsyBlog, tell us:

". . .it's not hard to spot the tell-tale symptoms of self-deception in other people. So perhaps we are also deceiving ourselves in ways we can't clearly perceive? But is that really possible and would we really believe the lies that we 'told' ourselves anyway? That's what Quattrone & Tversky (1984) explored in a classic social psychology experiment published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology."

If you want to understand more about the ease of self-deception, read The Truth About Self-Deception.

The conclusion:

"This experiment is neat because it shows the different gradations of self-deception, all the way up to its purest form, in which people manage to trick themselves hook, line and sinker. At this level people think and act as though their incorrect belief is completely true, totally disregarding any incoming hints from reality."

Now, send the link to Jerry in Marketing. (I kept one for myself, too.)