Living outside the box

Leadership and self-deception, living outside the box was the book that my group did our class project on. Monday was the first time I had something that was taught in the book apply to my life. One story that was told in the book was about 2 lawyers; one was new and trying to get a feel for how things were supposed to work, the other was a veteran with a lot of experience. They both were in charge of putting together a legal brief for their boss. In the book the boy that was just starting out forgot to check for new updates made to the laws they were using. When the veteran lawyer found out right before the brief was due, she was cool and collected; she also took full responsibility for the mishap. The reason why she took full responsibility was because she had thought to ask if the new lawyer had checked for updates but didn’t. When the young lawyer asked her why she took the blame for the brief she said that she was teaching him how to do the brief and when she didn’t ask she betrayed herself.

Now, the story that happened to me that applies to this book was this past Monday my roommate and I were supposed to do a paper for our sociology class. My roommate was in charge of printing it out and bringing it to class. The mourning it was due I woke up with the thought that I should remind her to bring it, but decided against it. Needless to say she forgot it and we had to take zeros on the paper. I wanted to be mad when she came to class without our assignment, but I wasn’t. I thought back to the story above and remembered that I had gone against myself and it was no one else’s fault but my own. The major thing I took away from the book was to always act on your impulses and do what you think you should. If I would have done that it would have saved me from stressing out to make up for the zero I now have on my grade.

Kate Kendrick