What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

by Marshall Goldsmith

People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. They’re not afraid of uncertainty or ambiguity. They embrace it. They want to take greater risks and achieve greater returns. Given the choice, they will always bet on themselves.

Overcommitment can be as serious an obstacle to change as believing that you don’t need fixing or that your flaws are part of the reason you’re successful.

When we do what we choose to do, we are committed. When we do what we have to do, we are compliant.

The basketball coach Rick Pitino wrote a book called Success Is a Choice. I agree. “I choose to succeed” correlates perfectly with achievement in virtually any field. People don’t stumble on success; they choose it.

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.

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).

Peter Drucker say, the wisest was, “We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”

But the higher up you go in the organization, the more you need to make other people winners and not make it about winning yourself.

Try this: For one week treat every idea that comes your way from another person with complete neutrality. Think of yourself as a human Switzerland. Don’t take sides. Don’t express an opinion. Don’t judge the comment. If you find yourself constitutionally incapable of just saying “Thank you,” make it an innocuous, “Thanks, I hadn’t considered that.” Or, “Thanks. You’ve given me something to think about.”

Being smart turns people on. Announcing how smart you are turns them off.

As to the second point, I can help you lose your reputation as a person who gets angry with one simple piece of advice. It is this: If you keep your mouth shut, no one can ever know how you really feel.

Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.

There simply is no excuse for making excuses.

If we can stop excusing ourselves, we can get better at almost anything we choose.

Stop blaming others for the choices you made—and that goes with double emphasis for the choices that turned out well.

We can’t see in ourselves what we can see so clearly in others.

I believe that we reap what we sow. If you smile at people, they will smile back. If you ignore them, they will resent you. If you put your fate in their hands—i.e., cede power to them—they will reward you.

Benjamin Franklin believed when he said, “To gain a friend, let him do you a favor.”

The best thing about apologizing, I tell my clients, is that it forces everyone to let go of the past. In effect, you are saying, “I can’t change the past. All I can say is I’m sorry for what I did wrong. I’m sorry it hurt you. There’s no excuse for it and I will try to do better in the future. I would like you to give me any ideas about how I can improve.”

The questions are simple. Does the executive in question: • Clearly communicate a vision. • Treat people with respect. • Solicit contrary opinions. • Encourage other people’s ideas. • Listen to other people in meetings. That

In soliciting feedback for yourself, the only question that works—the only one!—must be phrased like this: “How can I do better?”

two great lessons that have literally shaped my professional work. 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.

When it comes to apologizing, the only sound advice is get in and get out as quickly as possible.

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.

Basically, there are three things that all good listeners do: They think before they speak; they listen with respect; and they’re always gauging their response by asking themselves, “Is it worth it?”

There is an enormous disconnect between understanding and doing.

People don’t get better without follow-up. That

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. In

Becoming a better leader (or a better person) is a process, not an event.

am not suggesting that we should always let go of the past. You need feedback to scour the past and identify room for improvement. But you can’t change the past. To change you need to be sharing ideas for the future.

Successful people hate being wrong even more than they like being right.

Sometimes the desire for “perfect” can drive away “better.”

“The only thing you’re guilty of,” I said, “was checking the box!” “Huh?” he said. “You thought your job was done when you articulated the mission and wrote the memo—as if it were one more item on your to-do list for the day. You checked the box, and you moved on. Next.”

Once you send out a message, you ask people the next day if they heard it. Then you ask if they understood it. Then a few days later, you ask if they did something about it. Believe me, if the first follow-up question doesn’t get their attention, the next one will, and so will the final one.

The days when managers know how to do every job in the company better than anyone else are over. The reason Peter Drucker said that the manager of the future will know how to ask rather than how to tell is because Drucker understood that knowledge workers would know more than any manager does. Well, the future is here with a vengeance.

Stop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.

Stop trying to change people who are pursuing the wrong strategy for the organization. If they’re going in the wrong direction, all you’ll do is help them get there faster.

Finally, stop trying to help people who think everyone else is the problem.

We asked each of these young stars a simple question: “If you stay in this company, why are you going to stay?” The three top answers were: 1. “I am finding meaning and happiness now. The work is exciting and I love what I am doing.” 2. “I like the people. They are my friends. This feels like a team. It feels like a family. I could make more money working with other people, but I don’t want to leave the people here.” 3. “I can follow my dreams. This organization is giving me a chance to do what I really want to do in life.”