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Take the example of people who buy state lottery tickets. It is a statistical fact that state-run lotteries are “regressive taxes” on people who are not the highest income earners.
paycheck). Successful people have a unique distaste for feeling controlled or manipulated. I see this in my work every day.
cognitive dissonance.
The only natural law I’ve witnessed in three decades of observing successful people’s efforts to become more successful is this: People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values.
Fortunately, successful people make it easy to find the button. If you press people to identify the motives behind their self-interest it usually boils down to four items: money, power, status, and popularity. These are the standard payoffs for success. It’s why we will claw and scratch for a raise (money), for a promotion (power), for a bigger title and office (status). It’s why so many of us have a burning need to be liked by everyone (popularity).
1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations—when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point. 2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. 3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them. 4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty. 5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.” 6. Telling the world
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11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. 12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. 13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else. 14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. 15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect
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When people ask me if the leaders I coach can really change their behavior, my answer is this: As we advance in our careers, behavioral changes are often the only significant changes we can make.
That’s the problem with adding too much value. Imagine you’re the CEO. I come to you with an idea that you think is very good. Rather than just pat me on the back and say, “Great idea!” your inclination (because you have to add value) is to say, “Good idea, but it’d be better if you tried it this way.” The problem is, you may have improved the content of my idea by 5 percent, but you’ve reduced my commitment to executing it by 50 percent, because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea. My idea is now your idea
while Nicholson is a sixtyish tycoon with a lothario
But it’s not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people to voice their opinions about us. In those moments when other people have passed judgment on advice they have solicited from me, my first thought is, “Who died and made you the Critic in Chief?”
I assure them that I am mission neutral. I don’t deal in approval or disapproval.
It’s the same as a medical doctor dealing with patients. If you walk into the examining room with a broken leg, the doctor doesn’t pass judgment on how you broke your leg. He doesn’t care if you broke your leg committing a crime or kicking the dog or tripping down the stairs or getting hit by a car. He only cares about fixing your leg. You need to extend that same attitude—the doctor’s mission-neutral purpose—to dealing with people trying to help you. And here I am not referring only to the people who are trying to help you change.
My experience proves a simple point: Spend a few thousand dollars and you will get better! Destructive comments are an easy habit to fall into, especially among people who habitually rely on candor as an effective management tool.
Stop trying to defend your position and start monitoring how many times you begin remarks with “no,” “but,” or “however.”
Emotional volatility is not the most reliable leadership tool. When you get angry, you are usually out of control. It’s hard to lead people when you’ve lost control. You may think you have a handle on your temper, that you can use your spontaneous rages to manipulate and motivate people. But it’s very hard to predict how people will react to anger.
“Once people reach the age of accountability, no matter what people do to them,” he said, “that is not an excuse for any mistakes they make. On the other hand, one does seek to understand why he or she makes the mistakes they make.
When you find yourself mentally or literally drumming your fingers while someone else is talking, stop the drumming. Stop demonstrating impatience when listening to someone. Stop saying (or thinking) “Next!” It’s not only rude and annoying, but it’s sure to inspire your employees to find their next boss.
No matter what someone tells him, he accepts it by reminding himself, “I won’t learn less.” What that means is when somebody makes a suggestion or gives you ideas, you’re either going to learn more or learn nothing. But you’re not going to learn less. Hearing people out does not make you dumber. So, thank them for trying to help.
The solution is simple, but not easy. You have to step back, take a breath, and look. And survey the conditions that are making you obsessed with the wrong goals. Ask yourself: When are you under time pressure? Or in a hurry? Or doing something that you have been told is important? Or have people depending upon you? Probable answer: All the time. These are the classic conditions of the goal obsessed.
Ask yourself, “Am I achieving a task—and forgetting my organization’s mission?”
The Four Commitments. I need them to commit to: 1. Let go of the past. 2. Tell the truth. 3. Be supportive and helpful—not cynical or negative. 4. Pick something to improve yourself—so everyone is focused more on “improving” than “judging.”
“Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past!”
Make a list of people’s casual remarks about you.
2. Turn the sound off.
Complete the sentence.
Listen to your self-aggrandizing remarks.
Mike thought a minute, and then said, “I’m going to change, and the reason I’m going to change has nothing to do with money and it has nothing to do with this firm. I’m going to change because I have two sons, and if they were receiving this same feedback from you in twenty years, I’d be ashamed.”