More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Goal obsession turns us into someone we shouldn’t be.
Goal obsession is one of those paradoxical traits we accept as a driver of our success. It’s the force that motivates us to finish the job in the face of any obstacle—and finish it perfectly.
What we don’t appreciate until much later is that in obsessing about making money, we might be neglecting the loved ones—i.e., our family—for whom we are presumably securing that money; in obsessing about our weight with extreme diets we might actually end up doing more harm than good to our bodies; in pursuing the corner office we might trample upon the colleagues at work whose support and loyalty we will need later on to stay in that corner office or move even higher. We start out with a road map heading in one direction but end up in the wrong town.
As I say, this is why I’ve given goal obsession its own special corner. It’s not a flaw. It’s a creator of flaws. It’s the force that distorts our otherwise exemplary talents and good intentions, turning them into something we no longer admire.
After all this effort and display of professional prowess, you don’t want to find yourself at a dead end, asking, “What have I done?”
Over 95 percent of the members in most successful groups believe that they perform in the top half of their group. While this is statistically ridiculous, it is psychologically real.
change is not a one-way street. It involves two parties: the person who’s changing and the people who notice it.
Treat every piece of advice as a gift or a compliment and simply say, “Thank you.” No one expects you to act on every piece of advice. If you learn to listen—and act on the advice that makes sense—the people around you may be thrilled.
Pure unadulterated issue-free feedback that makes change possible has to (a) solicit advice rather than criticism, (b) be directed towards the future rather than obsessed with the negative past, and (c) be couched in a way that suggests you will act on it; that in fact you are trying to do better.
The interesting stuff is the information that’s known to others but unknown to us. When that information is revealed to us, those are the “road to Damascus” moments that create dramatic change. They are the moments when we can get blindsided by how others really see us, when we discover a truth about ourselves. These blindside moments are rare and precious gifts. They hurt, perhaps (the truth often does), but they also instruct.
1. It is a whole lot easier to see our problems in others than it is to see them in ourselves. 2. Even though we may be able to deny our problems to ourselves, they may be very obvious to the people who are observing us.
Some of the best feedback comes from what you observe.
Your flaws at work don’t vanish when you walk through the front door at home.
I always wonder about all those people who, like Ted in his former life, can’t bring themselves to admit they’re wrong or say they’re sorry. How do they survive in the world? How do they mend damaged relationships? How do they show others what they’re really feeling? How can they declare their willingness to alter their annoying ways without first saying, “I’m sorry”?
If a sophisticated CEO can mess up a $50 million apology by saying too much, imagine what havoc the rest of us can cause by voicing one word more than “I’m sorry” in our own displays of contrition.
When it comes to apologizing, the only sound advice is get in and get out as quickly as possible. You’ve got plenty of other things to do before you change for the better. The sooner you can get the apology over with, the sooner you can move on to telling the world.
AFTER YOU APOLOGIZE, you must advertise. It’s not enough to tell everyone that you want to get better; you have to declare exactly in what area you plan to change. In other words, now that you’ve said you’re sorry, what are you going to do about it?
In fact, I calculate that you have to get 100% better in order to get 10% credit for it from your coworkers.”
However, the odds improve considerably if you tell people that you are trying to change. Suddenly, your efforts are on their radar screen. You’re beginning to chip away at their preconceptions.
Eventually the message sinks in and people start to accept the possibility of a new improved you. It’s a little like the tree falling in the forest. If no one hears the thud, does it make a sound? The apology and the announcement that you’re trying to change are your way of pointing everyone in the direction of the tree.
You failed to appreciate that every successful project goes through seven phases: The first is assessing the situation; the second is isolating the problem; the third is formulating. But there are three more phases before you get to the seventh, implementation.
Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t pay close attention to phases four, five, and six—the vital period when you approach your coworkers to secure the all-important political buy-in to your plans. In each phase you must target a different constituency. In phase 4, you woo up—to get your superiors to approve. In phase 5, you woo laterally—to get your peers to agree. In phase 6, you woo down—to get your direct reports to accept. These three phases are the sine qua non of getting things done. You cannot skip or skim over them. You have to give them as much, if not more, attention, as you do
...more
JACK NICKLAUS SAID THAT 80 percent of a successful golf shot begins with a proper grip and how you stand over the ball. In other words, success is almost a foregone conclusion before you exert one muscle. It’s the same with listening: 80 percent of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen. In other words, success or failure is determined before we do anything. The thing about listening that escapes most people is that they think of it as a passive activity. You don’t have to do anything. You sit there like a lump and hear someone out. Not true. Good listeners
...more
The trouble with listening for many of us is that while we’re supposedly doing it, we’re actually busy composing what we’re going to say next.
The ability to make a person feel that, when you’re with that person, he or she is the most important (and the only) person in the room is the skill that separates the great from the near-great.
The only difference between us and the super-successful among us—the near-great and the great—is that the great ones do this all the time. It’s automatic for them. For them there’s no on and off switch for caring and empathy and showing respect. It’s always on. They don’t rank personal encounters as A, B, or C in importance. They treat everyone equally—and everyone eventually notices.
The best thing about saying “Thank you” is that it creates closure in any potentially explosive discussion. What can you say after someone thanks you? You can’t argue with them. You can’t try to prove them wrong. You can’t trump them or get angry or ignore them. The only response is to utter two of the most gracious, inviting, and sweet words in the language: “You’re welcome.” It’s music to anyone’s ears.
Eventually, you’ll come to see that expressing gratitude is a talent—a talent that goes hand in hand with wisdom and self-knowledge and maturity.
A week later the professor wrote back, congratulating my friend on the timeliness of his note. The professor had been slogging through dozens of term papers, questioning the value of reading them and grading them. “Your note,” he wrote, “reminded me that what I’m doing has worth.”
That’s the beauty and grace of a thank you note. If you can get an A? in gratitude, nothing bad will ever come of it. Only good.
Follow-up is the most protracted part of the process of changing for the better. It goes on for 12 to 18 months. Fittingly, it’s the difference-maker in the process. Follow-up is how you measure your progress. Follow-up is how we remind people that we’re making an effort to change, and that they are helping us. Follow-up is how our efforts eventually get imprinted on our colleagues’ minds. Follow-up is how we erase our coworkers’ skepticism that we can change. Follow-up is how we acknowledge to ourselves and others that getting better is an ongoing process, not a temporary religious
...more
Most leadership development revolves around one huge false assumption: If people understand, then they will do. That’s not true. Most of us understand, we just don’t do.
If nothing else, these studies show that leaders who ask for input on a regular basis are seen as increasing in effectiveness. Leaders who don’t follow up are not necessarily bad leaders. They are just not perceived as getting better.
The Hawthorne Effect posits that productivity tends to increase when workers believe that their bosses are showing a greater interest and involvement in their work.
If you study successful people, you’ll discover that their stories are not so much about overcoming enormous obstacles and handicaps but rather about avoiding high-risk, low-reward situations and doing everything in their power to increase the odds in their favor.
Keep this in mind. Sometimes feedback reveals a symptom, not a disease. A symptom is a headache; give it time and it goes away. A brain tumor, on the other hand, can’t be ignored. It needs treatment. I see this in organizations that have endured a temporary downturn; the feedback reveals angry employees lashing out at scapegoats. Angry employees need to be heard and dealt with.
In a way, I can see why people have problems choosing what needs fixing. In golf, for example, it is common wisdom that 70 percent of all shots take place within 100 yards of the pin. It’s called the short game, and it involves pitching, chipping, hitting out of sand traps, and putting. If you want to lower your score, focus on fixing your short game; it represents at least 70 percent of your score. Yet if you go to a golf course you’ll see very few people practicing their short game. They’re all at the driving range trying to hit their oversized drivers as far as they can. Statistically, it
...more
However, a much bigger reason for this behavior is our need to hide from the truth—often from what we already know. We know we need to visit a doctor or dentist, but we don’t because we might not want to hear what he has to say. We figure if we don’t seek out bad news about our health or teeth, there can’t be any bad news.
You can monetize the punishment and end the problem. Or you can monetize the result and create a solution. Either way, it works.
Remember this the next time you find yourself trapped by a needy, demanding staff. If they need too much of your time, you can’t just tell them to stop bothering you. You have to wean them away and make it seem like it’s their idea. Let them figure out what they should be doing on their own. Let them tell you where you’re not needed. There’s a fine line between legitimate face time and get-out-of-my-face time. It’s up to you as boss to make the troops face that.
Telling staff how to handle the boss is admirable, but it doesn’t completely solve one of the great unappreciated ironies of the boss vs. bossed dynamic. It is this: A lot of managers assume that their staff should be exactly like them—in behavior, in enthusiasm, in intelligence, and most especially, in how they apply that brainpower.
You can’t motivate 200 people to conquer a hill and, when they all start charging, say, “Wait a minute. Maybe this isn’t such a smart plan.” Do that a few times, and no one’s going to be inspired to take hills for you. They will just sit there and wait.
If you manage your people the way you’d want to be managed, you’re forgetting one thing: You’re not managing you.
so I pressed on with my theory about what may be the most egregious source of corporate dysfunction: the failure of managers to see the enormous disconnect between understanding and doing. Most leadership development revolves around one huge false assumption—that if people understand then they will do. That’s not true. Most of us understand, we just don’t do.
This I-know-what-they-want delusion extends far beyond money. As a general rule, people in their 20s want to learn on the job. In their 30s they want to advance. And in their 40s they want to rule. No matter what their age, though, understanding their desires is like trying to pin down mercury. You have to find out what they want at every step—by literally asking them—and you can’t assume that one size fits all. The person who sees the noble goal of “work-life balance” as irrelevant at age 24 may find it critical at 34.
In most places, the top-down chain of command structure is still intact. People still obey their bosses’ commands. But there’s been a subtle shift in power in the workplace, and some of it now resides in the free agents.
That’s the real peril today in free agent nation. One employee can’t bring a good manager down. But a bunch of employees can gang up and topple even the most productive bosses.
Stop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.
Finally, stop trying to help people who think everyone else is the problem.
Don’t look ahead. Look behind. Look back from your old age at the life you hope to live. Know that you need to be happy now, to enjoy your friends and family, to follow your dreams.
