Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be

by Marshall Goldsmith

As you can see, my first six questions are the Engaging Questions that I suggest for everyone. My next eight questions revolve around cornerstone concepts in The Wheel of Change, where I’m either creating, preserving, eliminating, or accepting. For example, learning something new or producing new editorial content is creating. Expressing gratitude is preserving. Avoiding angry comments is eliminating, and so is avoiding proving I’m right when it’s not worth it. Making peace with what I cannot change and forgiving myself is accepting. And the remaining questions are about my family and my health.

There’s no correct number of questions. The number is a personal choice, a function of how many issues you want to work on.

The point is, your Daily Questions should reflect your objectives. They’re not meant to be shared in public (unless you’re writing a book on the subject), meaning they’re not designed to be judged. You’re not constructing your list to impress anyone. It’s your list, your life. I score my “Did I do my best” questions on a simple 1 to 10 scale. You can use whatever works for you. Your only considerations should be: • Are these items important in my life? • Will success on these items help me become the person that I want to be?

That’s what makes active questions a magic move. Injecting the phrase “Did I do my best to…” triggers trying. Trying not only changes our behavior but how we interpret and react to that behavior. Trying is more than a semantic tweak to our standard list of goals. It delivers some unexpected emotional wallops that inspire change or knock us out of the game completely.

That’s the secret power of daily self-questioning. If we fall short on our goals eventually we either abandon the questions or push ourselves into action. We feel ashamed or embarrassed because we wrote the questions, knew the answers, and still failed the test. When the questions begin with “Did I do my best to…” the feeling is even worse. We have to admit that we didn’t even try to do what we know we should have done.

This is where Daily Questions can be a game-changer. They create a more congenial environment for us to succeed at behavioral change, in several ways.

1. They reinforce our commitment.

Daily Questions are what behavioral economists refer to as a “commitment device.”

Daily Questions are serious, too, if only in how they press us to articulate what we really want to change in our lives.

Intrinsic motivation is wanting to do something for its own sake, because we enjoy it,

Pleasure, devotion, curiosity are telltale signs of intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic motivation is doing something for external rewards such as other people’s approval or to avoid punishment.

Daily Questions focus us on where we need help, not where we’re doing just fine.

Daily Questions press us to face them, admit them, and write them down. Until we can do that, we have no chance of getting better.

Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behavior. Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behavior.

4. They shrink our goals into manageable increments.

Daily Questions, by definition, compel us to take things one day at a time.

By focusing on effort, they distract us from our obsession with results (because that’s not what we’re measuring). In turn, we are free to appreciate the process of change and our role in making it happen. We’re no longer frustrated by the languid pace of visible progress—because we’re looking in another direction.

Daily Questions remind us that: • Change doesn’t happen overnight. • Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. • If we make the effort, we will get better. If we don’t, we won’t. Commitment. Motivation. Self-discipline. Self-control. Patience. Those are powerful allies when we try to change our ways, courtesy of Daily Questions.

three benefits of Daily Questions.

1. If we do it, we get better.

2. We get better faster.

3. Eventually we become our own Coach.

Every endeavor comes with a first principle that dramatically improves our chances of success at that endeavor.

In carpentry it’s Measure twice, cut once. • In sailing it’s Know where the wind is coming from. • In women’s fashion it’s Buy a little black dress.

I have a first principle for becoming the person you want to be. Follow it and it will shrink your daily volume of stress, conflict, unpleasant debate, and wasted time. It is phrased in the form of a question you should be asking yourself whenever you must choose to either engage or “let it go.” Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?

getting mad at people for being who they are makes as much sense as getting mad at a chair for being a chair.

Another Peter Drucker quote changed my life. I tell it to everyone I coach, some would say over and over again: “Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the decision. Make peace with that.”

If this is your issue—habitually disagreeing with a decision—AIWATT blesses you with the simplest of cost-benefit analyses: Is this battle worth fighting? If your answer is no, put the decision behind you and plant your flag where you can make a positive difference. If your answer is yes, go for it.

There is immeasurable satisfaction—even pleasure—in taking a big risk and fighting a battle you believe in. It’s your life, your call. No one else can make it for you. AIWATT prepares you to live with the consequences.

When we regret our own decisions—and do nothing about it—we are no better than a whining employee complaining about his superiors. We are yelling at an empty boat, except it’s our boat.

AIWATT isn’t a universal panacea for all our interpersonal problems. I’ve given it prominence here because it has a specific utility. It’s a reminder that our environment tempts us many times a day to engage in pointless skirmishes. And we can do something about it—by doing nothing. Like closing our office door so people hesitate before they knock, when we ask ourselves, “Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?” we have a thin barrier of breathing room, time enough to inhale, exhale, and reflect before we engage or move on. In doing so, we block out the chatter and noise, freeing ourselves to tackle changes that really matter.

Alan Mulally. And he was a fantastic leader to start with.

When Alan retired from Ford in 2014, Fortune magazine ranked him as the third-greatest leader in the world, behind Pope Francis and Angela Merkel.

I believe that the Business Plan Review (BPR) process that he has developed is the most effective use of organizational structure that I have ever observed. In my years of coaching and research on change, I have learned one key lesson, which has near-universal applicability: We do not get better without structure.

When Alan arrived at Ford he instituted weekly Thursday morning meetings, known as the Business Plan Review, or BPR, with his sixteen top executives and the executive’s guests from around the world.

Attendance was mandatory; no exceptions (traveling executives participated by videoconference). No side discussions, no joking at the expense of others, no interruptions, no cell phones, no handing off parts of the presentation to a subordinate. Each leader was expected to articulate his group’s plan, status, forecast, and areas that needed special attention. Each leader had a mission to help—not judge—the other people in the room.

He began each BPR session in the same way: “My name is Alan Mulally and I’m the CEO of Ford Motor Company.” Then he’d review the company’s plan, status, forecast, and areas that needed special attention, using a green-yellow-red scoring system for good-concerned-poor. He asked his top sixteen executives to do the same, using the same introductory language and color scheme. In effect, he was using the same type of structure that I recommend in my coaching process and applying it to the entire corporation. He was introducing structure to his new team. And he did not deviate, either in content or wording. He always identified himself, always listed his five priorities, always graded his performance for the previous week. He never went off-message, and he expected the executives to follow suit.

To Alan simple repetition was the key—in fact, the essential element in structure—particularly the color code that encouraged division heads to highlight concerns in yellow and problem areas in red. In the same way that Daily Questions drive us to measure our effort every day and then face the reality of our own behavior, the executives would be announcing how they graded themselves every Thursday—without deviation. Self-scoring, whether a letter grade or Alan’s color coding, demanded transparency and honesty—what Alan called “visibility.” It encouraged everyone to take responsibility,

They weren’t allowed to digress or stonewall or try end runs around painful subjects.

That’s one of structure’s major contributions to any change process. It limits our options so that we’re not thrown off course by externalities. If we’re only allowed five minutes to speak, we find a way to make our case with a newfound concision—and it’s usually a better speech because of the structural limitations (most audiences would agree). Imposing structure on parts of our day is how we seize control of our otherwise unruly environment.

We do not get better without structure, whether we’re targeting an organizational goal or a personal one. But it has to be structure that fits the situation and the personalities involved.

But it wouldn’t work in all settings. Different people respond to different structure.

We solved that problem by immediately establishing a bimonthly (every other month) one-on-one meeting format for Robert with each of his nine direct reports.

My only instruction to Robert was to be consistent. Like Alan Mulally repeating his lines, he had to stick to the script. The agenda for each meeting was a sheet of paper with the following questions: • Where are we going? • Where are you going? • What is going well? • Where can we improve? • How can I help you? • How can you help me?

Structure is how we overcome depletion. In an almost magical way, structure slows down how fast our discipline and self-control disappear. When we have structure, we don’t have to make as many choices; we just follow the plan. And the net result is we’re not being depleted as quickly.

If the moment materializes at the wrong time of day, we may be operating under depletion’s influence—and regret it. That’s the paradox: We need help when we’re least likely to get it. Our environment is loaded with surprises that trigger odd, unfamiliar responses from us. We end up behaving against our interests. Quite often, we don’t even realize it. We lack the structural tools to handle bewildering interpersonal challenges.

imagine that you have to go to a one-hour meeting that will be pointless, boring, a time-suck better spent catching up on your “real” work.

At meeting’s end, you’re the first one out the door. Your goal was to spend the hour being miserable—and you succeeded. Now imagine at meeting’s end you will be tested—just you—with four simple questions about how you spent that hour: 1. Did I do my best to be happy? 2. Did I do my best to find meaning? 3. Did I do my best to build positive relationships? 4. Did I do my best to be fully engaged? If you knew that you were going to be tested, what would you do differently to raise your score on any of these four items?

Here’s my radical suggestion. From now on, pretend that you are going to be tested at every meeting! Your heart and mind will thank you for it. The hour that you spend in the meeting is one hour of your life that you never get back. If you are miserable, it is your misery, not the company’s or your co-workers’. Why waste that hour being disengaged and cynical? By taking personal responsibility for your own engagement, you make a positive contribution to your company—and begin creating a better you.