1

• The Trouble with Success

2

• The 20 Habits That Hold You Back from the Top

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• How We Can Change for the Better

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• Pulling Out the Stops

Book summary by Nordiana Noordin14 March 2014

20 + 1 habits that hold you back from the Top

You are here

How we can change for the better

Pulling out the stops

To all successful leaders who want to

“take it to the next level” and get even better

1

• The Trouble with Success

1. You are here2. Enough about you3. The success delusion, or

why we resist change

“In which we learn how our previous success often prevents us from achieving more success”

• You think you have all the answers, but others see it as arrogance.

• You think you’re contributing to a situation with helpful comments, but others see it as butting in.

• You think you’re delegating effectively, but others see it as unresponsiveness.

• You think you’re letting people think for themselves, but others see it as ignoring them.

What’s wrong is that you have no idea how your behaviour is coming across to the people who matter – your bosses, colleagues,

subordinates, customers and clients.

(And that’s not just true at work; the same goes for your home life)

1. You are here

“Who am I to tell you how to change?”

In 1980s, his career as an executive coach began with a phone call from the CEO of a Fortune 500 company:

“Marshall, I’ve got this guy running a big division who delivers his numbers and more every quarter. He’s young, smart, dedicated, ethical, motivated, hard-working, entrepreneurial, creative, charismatic, arrogant, stubborn, know-it-all jerk.

Trouble is, we’re a company built on team values, and no one thinks he’s a team player. I’m giving him a year to change, or he’s out. But you know something, it would worth a fortune to us if we could turn this guy around.”

2. Enough about you (Let’s talk about the author, Marshall Goldsmith – One of five most-respected executive coaches by Forbes )

My job is to identify a personal habit that’s annoying their co-workers and to help them eliminate it – so that they retain their value to the

organisation. My job is to make them see that the skills and habits that have taken them

this far might not be the right skills and habits to take them further.

3. The success delusion, or why we resist change

We:• Overestimate our contribution to a project• Take credit, partial or complete, for

successes that truly belong to others• Have an elevated opinion of our

professional skills and our standing among peers

• Conveniently ignore the costly failures and time-consuming dead-ends we have created

• Exaggerate our projects’ impact on net profits because we discount the real and hidden costs built into them (the costs are someone else’s problems, the success is ours)

Our delusions become a serious liability when we ne need to change.

Four key beliefs help us become successful:

• Belief 1:

I have succeeded – “I have the skills”

• Belief 2:

I can succeed – “I have the confidence”

• Belief 3:

I will succeed – “I have the motivation”

• Belief 4:

I choose to succeed – “I have free choice to succeed”

These four success beliefs make us superstitious and make it tough for us

to change.

2

• The 20 Habits That Hold You Back from the Top

1. Knowing what to stop2. Shifting into neutral3. What’s wrong with us?

“In which we identify the most annoying interpersonal issues in

the workplace and help you figure out which ones apply to you”

• “Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” – Peter Drucker

Which do you think is easier to do:becoming a nicer person or ceasing to be a jerk?

1. Knowing what to stop

• Not all behaviour is good or bad. Some are simply neutral – neither good nor bad.

• All you have to do is “stop being a jerk”.

2. Shifting into neutral

What we’re dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behaviour, often leadership behaviour.

• Everyday annoyances that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be.

• They are transactional flaws performed by one person against others.

And they are 20 annoying habits• So, check yourself against the list.

• It’s unlikely that you’re guilty of those habits – maybe some.

• If only 1 out of 20 people says that you are guilty of habit #8, let it go.

• If 16 out of 20 say it, let’s get to work.

3. What’s wrong with us?

The higher you go, the more your problems are behavioural.

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 judgement: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.

4. Making destructive comments: Making destruction 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 how smart they are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.

7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional votality as a management tool.

8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.

9. Witholding info: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.

10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.

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 behaviour as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.

13. Clinging to the past: To deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.

14. Playing favourites: 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 others.

16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.

17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.

18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.

19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.

20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

Goal obsession is not a flaw – not transactional – not something you do to another person.

• But it is often the root cause of the annoying behaviour – it turns us into someone we shouldn’t be.

• It’s the force that motivates us to finish the job in the face of any obstacle – and finish it perfectly.

In it’s broadest form, a goal obsession is the force at play when we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal that we do it at the expense of a larger mission.

• It comes from misunderstanding what we want in our lives.

• It comes from misunderstanding what others want us to do.

.... The 21st habit: Goal obsession

As a result, in our dogged pursuit of our goals we forget our manners. We’re nice to people of they can help us hit our goal.

We push them away if they’re not useful to us.

We think we’d be truly happy (or at least happier) if only we made more money, or lost 10kg, or got the corner office.

So, we pursue those goals relentlessly.

What we don’t appreciate until much later is that ...

• in obsessing about making more money, we might be neglecting our loved ones i.e. our family – for whom we 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

It comes from misunderstanding what we want in our lives.

We start out with a road map heading in one direction but end up in the wrong town.

The boss says we have to show 10% 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 honourable 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 10% 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.

It comes from misunderstanding what others want us to do.

Is it any wonder our values get mixed up?Goal obsession has warped our sense of what is right or wrong.

3

• How we can change for the better

1. Feedback2. Apologising3. Advertising4. Listening5. Thanking6. Following up7. Practicing feedforward

“In which we learn a seven-step method for changing our

interpersonal relationships and making these changes permanent”

If you step back and look at most of those interpersonal flaws (20 annoying habits), they revolve two familiar factors: information and emotion.

• Almost half rooted in information compulsion:

– 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.

– likewise, when we fail to give recognition, or claim credit we don’t deserve, or refuse to apologise, or don’t express our gratitude – we are withholding information.

• Some rooted in emotion compulsion:

– when we get angry, or play favourites, or punish the messenger – we are succumbing to emotion – and displaying it for all the world to see.

Information and emotion. We either share them or withhold them. We have to ask: “Is this appropriate?” and “How much should I convey?”

Take a breath...

• Feedback tells us where we are, where we need to go and to measure our progress. Without it, we wouldn’t have results, we couldn’t keep score, we wouldn’t know if we were getting better or worse.

• We need honest, helpful feedback.

1. Feedback

• Apologising is the magic move – a seemingly simple tactic – but like admitting you were wrong – it’s tough for some people to do but brilliant for those who can.

• How to apologise? Here’s the instruction manual:─ You say “I’m sorry.”─ You add “I’ll try to do better in the future.”─ And then you say nothing.

(Don’t explain it. Don’t complicate it. Don’t qualify it. You only risk saying something that will dilute it.)

2. Apologising

• After you apologise, you must advertise – 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?

3. Advertising

• 80% of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen – success or failure is determined before we do anything.

• Good listeners do:

─ Think before you speak

─ Listen with respect

─ Ask yourself, “Is it worth it?”

4. Listening

• Why thanking works? Because it expresses one of our most basic emotions: gratitude.

5. Thanking

• You do not get better without follow-up. Always ask: “How am I doing?”

6. Following up

• Pick the one behaviour that you would like to change.

• Describe this objective in a one-to-one dialogue with anyone you know.

• Ask that person for 2 suggestions for the future that might help you achieve a positive change in your selected behaviour.

• Listen attentively to the suggestions. You are not allowed to judge, rate or critique the suggestions in anyway.

7. Practicing feedforward

4

• Pulling Out the Stops

“In which leaders learn how to apply the rules of change and what

to stop doing now”

1. Changing: The rules2. What to stop doing

• Rule 1: You might not have a disease that behavioural change can cure

• Rule 2: Pick the right thing to change

• Rule 3: Don’t delude yourself about what you really must change

• Rule 4: Don’t hide from the truth you need to hear

• Rule 5: There is no ideal behaviour

• Rule 6: If you can measure it, you can achieve it

• Rule 7: Monetise the result, create a solution

• Rule 8: The best time to change is now

1. Changing: The rules

• Stop 1: Stop letting your staff overwhelm you

• Stop 2: Stop acting as if you are managing you

• Stop 3: Stop “checking the box”

• Stop 4: Stop being prejudiced about your employees─ I know what they want─ I know what they know─ I hate their selfishness─ I can always get someone else

• Stop 5: Stop trying to coach people who shouldn’t be coached─ 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

organisation─ Stop trying to change people who should not be in their job─ Stop trying to help people who think everyone else is the problem

2. What to stop doing

Marshall conducted a research project involving more than 200 high-potential leaders from 120 companies around the world. Each company could nominate only 2 future leaders, the very brightest of its young stars. These are the kinds of people who could jump at a moment’s notice to better-paying positions elsewhere.

The 3 top answers:

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 organisation is giving me a chance to do what I really want to do in life.”

“If you stay in this company, why are you going to stay?”

The answers were never about money. They were always about happiness, relationships, following dreams, and meaning.

You can get there!

Let the journey begin.

You are here now