This is how the researchers begin their explanation:
Few decisions have higher stakes than the decision to commit to one particular romantic partner. In perhaps no other context do adults voluntarily tie their hopes and goals to the good will of another. To feel happy and secure in the face of such vulnerability, individuals need to believe that their relationship really is a good one and that their partner can be counted on to be caring and responsive across time and situations.
When I tie myself to my wife, I am making one of the biggest commitments of my life. To avoid cognitive dissonance, I make myself believe that the commitment I made is a good one. My problem is that my wife is not perfect, nor does she see the world in exactly the way I do. If I dwell on these imperfections and differences of perspective, I will become insecure about my decision and, soon, about my safety in the relationship itself. As a result, I will be less comfortable with real intimacy, less forgiving, less positive in my judgments of her, and things will slowly fall apart.
So, instead, I overstate the case for my commitment. I come to believe that my wife has more strengths than she actually thinks she has. These perceptions may not be real, in the sense that they may not reflect what my wife is really like. But, nonetheless, they serve the needs of our relationship very well. They make me feel secure in my decision, secure in my relationship, and therefore, even in moments of extreme vulnerability, my trust in the relationship trumps my need for self-preservation. Because I am fortified by my positive illusions, when my wife does something that upsets me, I will not retreat and look for ways to get back at her (not often; not deliberately; at least, not often deliberately) but instead will reach toward her for greater intimacy.
And so, over time, my positive illusions create an upward spiral of love. My illusions give me conviction. My conviction leads to security. My security fosters intimacy. And my intimacy reinforces love.
Putting these conclusions together, this controlling insight can serve as the One Thing you need to know about happy marriage:
Find the most generous explanation for each other's behavior and believe it.
Love begins with positive illusions, but in strong marriages, these positive illusions do not give way to a dispassionately accurate understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Instead these positive illusions weave their strength into the fabric of the relationship, until they actually become the relationship. They make themselves come true. Stated more bluntly, your positive illusions will make your love last.
As with all controlling insights, this One Thing should help you act with greater precision as you strive to strengthen your relationship. For example, the researchers tell us that when you notice a flaw in your spouse, you should not compartmentalize it. Do not put a line around it, give it a name, set if off to one side, and then try to balance it out with her positive traits, as in "Yes, she is a short-tempered person, but, on the positive side, she is also caring and creative." Balancing out clearly delineated weaknesses with equally clearly delineated strengths may seem sensible but, unfortunately, it won't help your relationship. The research reveals that husbands and wives who do this to each other end up with more doubts, more conflicts, and less rewarding relationships. It's almost as if, by defining your spouse's weaknesses specifically and vividly, you imbue those weaknesses with unwarranted power. They may lurk off in the wings for a while, but, like a stage villain, they are primed to leap out of the shadows at any moment and ruin the fun.
Instead, the researchers tell us, when you notice a flaw, recast it in your mind as an aspect of a strength. Thus "She's not impatient, she's intense." Or "She's not narrow-minded, she's focused." Initially this may feel like you're playing mind games with yourself, but you're actually doing something quite clever. Remember: the strongest relationships over time are those in which each partner finds a way to build on his/her idealized image of the other. By recasting weaknesses as aspects of a strength you are integrating all available information into this idealized image. Thus your idealized image is stronger and more robust because no new information, no newly discovered flaw, can undermine it. Any new flaw is simply reformatted as a thread of a strength, and then woven right back into your idealized image.
As I said, this insight runs counter to the conventional wisdom on marriage and may be difficult for you to square with your view of your own relationship. Does this mean you shouldn't try to understand your spouse? Does this mean you and your spouse should never argue? What happens if your positive illusions keep getting undermined by the fact that you and your spouse value things that are diametrically opposed?
The answers to these questions could probably fill a whole book, and since this isn't that book, I won't dwell on them now. Nonetheless, despite these questions, I chose to include this recent finding on happy marriage because it was so clearly the result of a rigorous study of excellence. At the very least it should make you stop and think about how you are choosing to perceive your spouse. As the research reveals, your perceptions not only color your current reality, they actually alter your relationship and thereby create your future reality.
And if you worry that all this is derived from some new-fangled study that subsequent research will probably refute, here is the eighteenth-century poet William Blake saying pretty much the same thing and reminding us that there really is nothing new under the sun: "Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceived."
So, when looking at your spouse, choose your perceptions with care. They will fuel your desire.
At this point, let's leave the mysteries of marriage behind and return to the three questions at the heart of the book. What is the One Thing you need to know about:
Great managing
Great leading
Sustained individual success
Each of these subjects is rich and complex. Each could be explored endlessly to detail fully their many facets. My aim in this book is not to deny the complexity of these subjects, but to penetrate it; not to make these subjects simpler, merely clearer. After all, we live in a world of excess access. We can find whatever we want, whenever we want it, as soon as we want it. This can be wonderfully helpful if we are trying to track down last month's sales data, an errant bank statement, or a misplaced mother-in-law, but if we are not quite careful, this instant, constant access can overwhelm us.
To thrive in this world will require of us a new skill. Not drive, not sheer intelligence, not creativity, but focus. The word "focus" has two primary meanings. It can refer either to your ability to sort through many factors and identify those that are most critical -- to be able to focus well is to be able to filter well. Or it can refer to your ability to bring sustained pressure to bear once you've identified these factors -- this is the laser-like quality of focus. The skill targeted by this book incorporates both of these meanings.
Today you must excell at filtering the world. You must be able to cut through the clutter and zero in on the emotions or facts or events that really matter. You must learn to distinguish between what is merely important and what is imperative. You must learn to place less value on all that you can remember and more on those few things that you must never forget.
But you must also learn the discipline of applying yourself with laser-like precision. As we will see, the common thread running through each of the three controlling insights is that success, whether as a manager, a leader, or an individual performer, does not come to those who aspire to well-roundedness, breadth, and balance. The reverse is true. Success comes most readily to those who reject balance, who instead pursue strategies that are intentionally imbalanced. This focus, this willingness to apply disproportionate pressure in a few selected areas of your working life, won't leave you brittle and narrow. Counterintuitively, this kind of lopsided focus actually increases your capacity and fuels your resilience.
My hope for this book is that it will arm you with the insights you need to sharpen both aspects of your focus, the filter and the laser, and thereby enable you to manage, lead, and perform with extreme precision and effect.
Excerpted from "The One Thing You Need to Know," by Marcus Buckingham. Published by The Free Press. Copyright © 2005 by One Thing Productions, Inc.
