Choice Theory Read Free

years ago. In fact, even bosses are experiencing less job satisfaction.
    As much as we haven’t been able to make any improvement in the way we get along with each other to nudge the graph upward, there are enough situations in which we do that there is no doubt that we could do so if more of us learned how. Here and there, we find marvelous schools, in which all the teachers and students care for each other and everyone is learning and happy. All of us know happily married couples, solid families, and people who are well satisfied with their jobs. But when asked to explain their happiness, many hesitate. They aren’t sure. Some say,
We work hard to get along with each other,
but others shrug and say,
Maybe luck has a lot to do with it.
What they never say is,
We have given up trying to control each other.
They don’t realize that they may be following a different theory, that inadvertently they have discovered choice theory.
    When asked about technical progress, people occasionally talk about getting along better with each other. Many do see that there is a correlation between the two in some cases. But few people attribute major technical progress to luck. Technology has progressed in this area because we are willing to or have embraced a new theory or a new way to use an old one.
    In almost all attempts to improve human progress, for example, to improve marriages, families, schools, or work, there has been no operational change in theory. External control is so firmly in the saddle that even when we make a little progress, we are blind to the fact that we have given up external control psychology and are starting to use what is, in essence, choice theory. What I am addressing is our need to become aware that there is another psychology.
    I do not claim that there are no other psychologies that are similar to choice theory. Albert Ellis’s * rational emotive behavior therapy is certainly one of them. In the area of work, W. Edwards Deming † has shown that high-quality work is dependent on driving out thefear that prevents people from getting along well with each other. He likens the manager in the workplace to the leader of a symphony orchestra in which everyone willingly follows the leader and contributes to the performance. No one is forced to make a contribution; they do so because they see that it is to their benefit.
    Even though he is probably not aware of it, Herb Kelleher, the extremely successful CEO of Southwest Airlines, is practicing choice theory in how he runs his company. In a recent book,
Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Business Recipe for Both Business and Personal Success, *
Kelleher said this about leadership: “It really signifies getting people, through both example and persuasion, to happily join together in pursuit of a worthwhile common cause.” On downsizing, which he called a corporate blunder, he stated, “We haven’t had any furloughs at Southwest, although obviously during the recession we could have made more money if we had. The disaffection it engenders, the angst. Once you do it [workers] don’t forget about it for a long time.” The people, not the bottom line, are sacred at Southwest.
    But Southwest is an exception. If Kelleher sells out or retires, it is almost certain that the people who take over will downsize and become coercive to try to improve profits. And in the short run, they may be successful. Without Kelleher, however, the new owners are likely to revert to external control and fail in the long run.
    We also do not see how widespread misery really is because, again guided by common sense, a lot of us think that misery is caused mainly by poverty, laziness, or how the powerful treat the powerless. But in the affluent Western world, there is no shortage of miserable people who are well off, hardworking, and powerful. I have noticed that there is a high rate of divorce among successful academics, with successful professionals and business leaders close behind. The