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

by Marshall Goldsmith

I like to divide excuses into two categories: blunt and subtle. The blunt “dog ate my homework” excuse sounds like this: “I’m sorry I missed our lunch date. My assistant had it marked down for the wrong day on my calendar.”

It’s amazing how often I hear otherwise brilliant, successful people make willfully self-deprecating comments about themselves. It’s a subtle art because, in effect, they are stereotyping themselves—as impatient, or hot-tempered, or disorganized—and using that stereotype to excuse otherwise inexcusable behavior.

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

going backwards is not about creating change. It’s about understanding.

Understanding the past is perfectly admissible if your issue is accepting the past. But if your issue is changing the future, understanding will not take you there. My experience tells me that the only effective approach is looking people in the eye and saying, “If you want to change, do this.”

for some reason, many people enjoy living in the past, especially if going back there lets them blame someone else for anything that’s gone wrong in their lives. That’s when clinging to the past becomes an interpersonal problem. We use the past as a weapon against others.

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I use an irrefutable test with my clients to show how we all unknowingly encourage sucking up. I ask a group of leaders, “How many of you own a dog that you love?” Big smiles cross the executives’ faces as they wave their hands in the air. They beam as they tell me the names of their always-faithful hounds. Then we have a contest. I ask them, “At home, who gets most of your unabashed affection? Is it (a) your husband, wife or partner; (b) your kids; or (c) your dog?” More than 80 percent of the time, the winner is the dog. I then ask the executives if they love their dogs more than their family members. The answer is always a predictable but resounding no. My follow-up: “So why does the dog get most of your attention?” Their replies all sound the same: “The dog is always happy to see me.” “The dog never talks back.” “The dog gives me unconditional love, no matter what I do.” In other words, the dog is a suck-up. I can’t say that I am any better.

If we aren’t careful, we can wind up treating people at work like dogs: Rewarding those who heap unthinking, unconditional admiration upon us. What behavior do we get in return? A virulent case of the suck-ups. The net result is manifestly obvious. You’re encouraging behavior that serves you, but not necessarily the best interests of the company. If everyone is fawning over the boss, who’s getting work done? Worse, it tilts the field against the honest, principled employees who won’t play along. This is a double hit of bad news. You’re not only playing favorites but favoring the wrong people! Leaders can stop encouraging this behavior by first admitting that we all have a tendency to favor those who favor us, even if we don’t mean to.

And the fault is all ours. We’re encouraging the kind of behavior that we despise in others. Without meaning to, we are basking in hollow praise, which makes us hollow leaders.

Expressing regret, or apologizing, is a cleansing ritual, like confession in church. You say, “I’m sorry”—and you feel better.

If you put your fate in their hands—i.e., cede power to them—they will reward you.

tony

rube,

This experience instilled in me the conviction that if you put all your cards in someone else’s hands that person will treat you better than if you kept the cards to yourself. I’m sure this is what Benjamin Franklin believed when he said, “To gain a friend, let him do you a favor.”

Apologizing is one of the most powerful and resonant gestures in the human arsenal—almost as powerful as a declaration of love. It’s “I love you” flipped on its head. If love means, “I care about you and I’m happy about it,” then an apology means, “I hurt you and I’m sorry about it.” Either way, it’s seductive and irresistible; it irrevocably changes the relationship between two people. It compels them to move forward into something new and, perhaps, wonderful together.

That’s the magic in this process. When you declare your dependence on others, they usually agree to help. And during the course of making you a better person, they inevitably try to become better people themselves. This is how individuals change, how teams improve, how divisions grow, and how companies become world-beaters.

In the old days, the junior scientists at a major corporation might not have had a better option for employment. It was a choice between one big company and another. As the executives slowly learned, as they watched talent walk out the door, times change. Today these junior scientists have the option of working in small start-ups or venturing out on their own. They’re not hostages to a bunch of old men in white shirts. They can wear blue jeans to work. They can have beer blasts on Fridays. In many cases, they can get very rich at a very young age.

in the past very bright people would put up with disrespectful behavior, but in the future they will leave!

My friend Chris Cappy, an expert in executive learning, has a saying that put this into perspective for me. 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.

“Thank you. I had never considered that.” It’s almost irrelevant whether the boss gives the idea any further thought. The critical issue is that saying “thank you” keeps people talking to you. Failing to say “thank you” shuts them down.

Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often.

Gratitude is not a limited resource, nor is it costly. It is as abundant as air. We breathe it in but forget to exhale.

If your goal is to stop people from giving you input—of all kinds—perfect your reputation for shooting the messenger. On the other hand, if your goal is to stop this bad habit, all you need to say is, “Thank you.”

Passing the buck is the dark flip side of claiming credit that others deserve. Instead of depriving others of their rightful glory for a success, we wrongfully saddle them with the shame of our failure.

No one expects us to be right all the time. But when we’re wrong, they certainly expect us to own up to it. In that sense, being wrong is an opportunity—an opportunity to show what kind of person and leader we are. Consumers judge a service business not so much when it does things right (consumers expect that) but rather by how the business behaves in correcting a foul-up. It’s the same in the workplace. How well you own up to your mistakes makes a bigger impression than how you revel in your successes.

it would be easy for each of us to cross the line and begin to make a virtue of our flaws—simply because the flaws constitute what we think of as “me.” This misguided loyalty to our true natures—this excessive need to be me—is one of the toughest obstacles to making positive long-term change in our behavior. It doesn’t need to be.

My job in helping him change was to make him see that he could add one more definition of himself—that he could see himself as a boss who is good at giving recognition. I asked him, “Why can’t this be you, too? Is doing so immoral, illegal, or unethical?”

“No.” “Will it make people feel better?” “Yes.” “Will they perform better as a result of this positive recognition?” “Probably.” “Will that help your career?” “Probably.” “So why don’t you start doing it?” “Because,” he laughed, “it wouldn’t be me.” That was the moment when change became possible—when he realized that this stern allegiance to his definition of himself was pointless vanity.

The irony of all this wasn’t lost on him either. The less he focused on himself and the more he considered what his staff were feeling, the more it benefited him. His reputation as a manager soared. His career did too.

Less me. More them. Equals success.

Keep this in mind when you find yourself resisting change because you’re clinging to a false—or pointless—notion of “me.” It’s not about you. It...

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.

It also comes from misunderstanding what others want us to do. The boss says we have to show ten percent revenue growth for the year, so when it appears we will miss that target, goal obsession forces us to adopt questionable, less than honest methods of hitting the target. In other words, the honorable pursuit of a difficult goal set by someone else transforms us into cheaters. If you examine it more closely, we’re not really obsessed with hitting the ten percent growth; our true goal is pleasing our boss. The only problem is that we either don’t see this or we refuse to admit it to ourselves. Is it any wonder our values get mixed up? Goal obsession has warped our sense of what is right or wrong.

goal obsession

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.

What happened to Candace, Colonel Nicholson, Mike, and the seminary students? They were chasing the spotlight. They were under pressure! They were in a hurry! They had deadlines! They were going to do something that they thought was important! Other people were depending upon them! These are the classic conditions that can lead to goal obsession. Great follow through. Terrific discipline. Awesome goal obsession. Short-sighted goal. A recipe for disaster.

The journalist/novelist Tom Wolfe has a theory he calls information compulsion. He says that people have an overwhelming need to tell you something that you don’t know, even when it’s not in their best interest.

too much information”

overwhelming need to display and share what we know. And we do it excessively.

When we add value, or pass judgment, or make destructive comments, or announce that we “already knew that,” or explain “why that won’t work” we are compulsively sharing information. We’re telling people something they don’t know. We’re convinced that we’re making people smarter or inspiring them to do better, when we’re more likely to achieve the opposite effect.

The other habits are rooted in a different kind of compulsion, one that’s centered on emotion. When we get angry, or play favorites, or punish the messenger, we are succumbing to emotion—

Information and emotion. We either share them or withhold them.

When dealing with information or emotion, we have to consider if what we’re sharing is appropriate. Appropriate information is anything that unequivocally helps the other person. But it veers into inappropriate when we go too far or risk hurting someone.

anger can be a useful tool if we parse it out in small doses at opportune moments.

When sharing information or emotion, we have to ask is this appropriate and how much should I convey?

Successful people only have two problems dealing with negative feedback. However, they are big problems: (a) they don’t want to hear it from us and (b) we don’t want to give it to them.

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.

Basically, we accept feedback that is consistent with our self-image and reject feedback that is inconsistent.

When was the last time your efforts to prove the boss wrong worked as a career-enhancing maneuver?)