Why You Need an Outsider to Get Inside Your Head
Tony, like most executives, has blind spots, weaknesses, and unconscious motivations that trip him up, causing his otherwise sound decision making to go awry. As much as he might want to, he’s not going to be able to identify and resolve these issues on his own. Think about the difficulty of creating self-awareness on your own by focusing on another leader in your company. Choose someone who is bright and successful but who always has problems when he’s in certain situations or working with certain people. Perhaps it’s someone who invariably gets into confrontations with other leaders when placed on a new team. Perhaps it’s a manager who is incredibly knowledgeable about the business and a great strategist but who can’t make a major decision to save his soul.
These people aren’t deliberately trying to mess up. If they could, they’d stop themselves from always getting into bitter feuds with their peers or consistently screwing up when major decisions must be made. As Tony has discovered, though, people’s minds play tricks on them. On a number of shows, he’s had dreams and waking fantasies that distort reality. Only when he talks to Dr. Melfi does he realize that these distortions are actually clues to who he is, why he does what he does, and how he might change and become a more effective boss.
I’m not suggesting that you need to see a psychiatrist or even an executive coach. It helps, though, to enlist the help of an insightful friend, colleague, or mentor to give you insights about both your strengths and your weaknesses. What you’re looking for is someone who is sufficiently perceptive about who you are and sufficiently honest that she will share her perception with you. This is not self-awareness for self-awareness’ sake, but for the sake of being a more effective leader. Let’s look at how Tony’s work with Dr. Melfi has made him a better leader.
TONY ON HIS AWARENESS OF THE DUALITY THAT GOVERNS OUR THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS
"I find I have to be the sad clown, laughing on the outside, crying on the inside."
Although Tony entered therapy as a way to stop his recurring panic attacks, he achieved not only that initial goal but he realized other business-related benefits. Tony takes a surprisingly open and flexible view of therapy. Almost intuitively, he recognizes that this isn’t a bunch of touchy-feely nonsense but that he can use it. Tony is a highly pragmatic leader, and he quickly grasps that Dr. Melfi’s role can be expanded from traditional therapist to a type of "consigliere." For this reason, Tony sometimes uses their sessions to address business issues, sounding her out about his options and how his personal demons and drives might be impacting his decision making. With Dr. Melfi’s insights, Tony is able to make connections between disparate ideas that he would have never made on his own.
For instance, when Christopher told Tony that he should have given him praise for his work on the Triborough Towers contract, Tony agrees that he has a point, but adds that he wasn’t supported or complimented by his parents, and that impacts how he treats Christopher and others. In a very subtle but effective manner, Tony is sharing his vulnerability with Christopher to assuage Christopher’s hurt feelings. Tony’s ability to connect how he was parented to how he treats Christopher not only helps his relationship with Christopher but provides him with a red flag that he can raise to avoid this mistake in similar, future situations.
Building strong relationships with a diverse group of people is crucial to leadership today, but many executives are handicapped when it comes to relationship building. A typical top executive with an organization tends to be very good at building only certain types of relationships. For instance, some leaders are terrific when it comes to working with people who share similar backgrounds but are abysmal when it comes to people who traveled different paths. I know one executive who could only relate to people from privileged backgrounds—prep schools, Ivy League colleges, elite training programs—and became arrogant and supercilious with direct reports from more "common" walks of life. There are also managers who are very good at relating up but not good at relating down (or vice versa). And there are those who can relate well to an inner circle but who view every-one else with suspicion and even paranoia.
Many times, it takes an executive coach or another outside viewpoint for these people to become aware that not only are they leading insular work lives but this insularity is hurting their careers and their companies. Certainly these people are dimly aware that they favor their inner circle or specific individuals within their group, but they simply don’t see the larger implications of this favoritism. More significant, they don’t realize that they need to work consciously at being more inclusive, at establishing common ground with others, and at adapting to the needs of a more diverse constituency. A coach or confidante can drive these points home in compelling ways, offering feedback from others or by leading the person being coached to this self-realization via a series of questions. Dr. Melfi is adept at this questioning technique, and Tony often experiences personal epiphanies because of his answers to Dr. Melfi’s questions.
No outside coach or therapist creates this self-awareness overnight. It’s an incremental process, and progress is made because small insights begin to accumulate and gather force in people’s minds. Since Tony began seeing Dr. Melfi, he has gradually become aware of his flaws and how they impact his decision making. Though he becomes impatient with this process at times, Tony knows that it offers him real benefits. For instance, he has become adept at establishing and maintaining a wide variety of relationships. He has become skilled at managing relationships that are inherently tense, such as the one between himself and his son, AJ. At one point, Tony yelled at AJ and essentially said he was a poor excuse for a son because he wasn’t sufficiently tough. Rather than leave the bad blood between them, Tony makes an effort to make amends, recognizing that his hot temper has caused him to say things he really doesn’t mean. He brings home pizza, knowing that AJ likes it, and says to him, "Sorry for talking to you the way I did. It was wrong." Taking responsibility for one’s actions is a sign of the self-aware individual, and in this instance, it gives Tony the impetus and ability to mend fences with his son. Tony tells his son that when he looks at AJ, he sees himself, that he keeps his feelings inside and reacts without thinking. AJ clearly appreciates Tony’s honesty and openness. More than that, AJ relishes that his father is talking to him in a respectful and adult fashion. Without his increased self-awareness, Tony could never have connected with AJ in this way.
Another compelling reason to use therapists or coaches relates to the notion of behavioral change. Many traditional business leaders resist coaching, convinced that they or their people will never change. When confronted with a direct report who stubbornly persists in counterproductive behavior, more than one executive has said, "He’ll never change." Therapists and coaches aren’t magicians who transform people into their opposites. They do, however, provide the impetus and the techniques for people to adjust aspects of their personalities, and this can make all the difference between being an ineffective and an effective leader. Coaches spend a lot of time teaching new behavior, allowing their clients to practice this behavior and then giving them feedback. By practicing new behavior with a coach, people can often integrate the behavior into their work routines.
Tony, for instance, becomes less of a "control freak" with the help of Dr. Melfi. His willingness to give up some control can be seen in his evolving relationship with Carmela. When he finally grasps that Carmela is serious about splitting up, he realizes that his stubborn refusal to move out of the house is doing more harm than good. Moving out is Tony’s way of conceding that his attempt to control this situation has failed. He also stops trying to control and manipulate Carmela through his lies and deceits. For the first time, he is willing to come to terms with the hypocrisy of their relationship, and he and Carmela have a candid talk about their feelings toward each other and the marriage.
Tony also is willing to forgo control in some of his business relationships. Around the same time he has this candid discussion with Carmela, he decides not to clip Carmine, recognizing that this decision may cost him some power and control. In his new self-aware state, however, Tony perceives that losing some power and control may be a better alternative than going through with the hit, for he views Johnny Sack’s motives for partnering on the hit as suspect.
Ultimately, though, what Tony gets out of therapy is what every business leader gets out of coaching: the chance to express ideas to and receive advice from a nonjudgmental "outsider." In organizations, people often hold their ideas and emotions close to the vest. When they don’t express how they truly feel or think, their "real" persons are hidden from view. They can’t develop self-awareness when they’re intentionally hiding who they are.
Dr. Melfi lets Tony be himself. With her more than anyone else, he is able to express his greatest fears and his most powerful dreams, and this expression helps him develop and grow as a person and as a leader. In fact, you can see Tony trying to "share" these secret parts of himself with "insiders," and it doesn’t work well. When Tony and Carmela are at a restaurant and he tells her for the first time that he is in therapy, she responds, "That’s great and it’s gutsy." He then goes on about how he "feels his life is out of balance and our existence on this earth is a puzzle." He hopes that Carmela will listen like Dr. Melfi and ask questions that help him further sort through his feelings. Instead Carmela immediately launches into a soliloquy about how her daughter hates her, and Tony quickly returns to his controlling, paternalistic mode. Later, Tony confesses to Hesh that he’s been seeing a psychiatrist, hoping that Hesh will provide him with Dr. Melfi–like insights, asking, "What’s wrong with me?" Hesh, like Carmela, starts talking about his own problems, and the scene ends with an expressionistic shot, Tony at one end of the room and Hesh at the other, symbolizing the distance between them. The point is that self-awareness can’t be fostered by just anyone. Whether you’re Tony or a business leader, you need to find someone who listens empathetically, offers wise advice, and doesn’t pass judgment.