What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith serves as a roadmap  to help you get where you want to go in life and at work.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith helps people:

• Get into leadership position.
• Put your vision into action.
• Identify and change bad habits.
• Succeed and reach higher heights of success.
• Understand that the same skills that got you previous success and won’t get you to the next level.

Why is it so hard to stop a bad habit?

It is not easy for successful people to change their behavior because their past successes have acted as positive reinforcement and have solidified some of your behaviors.

Furthermore, stopping a bad behavior isn’t as rewarded as you would think but it detrimental to success.

Indeed, we don’t get as much credit for stopping something as much as starting something.

Successful people either assume that:

• They are right and everybody else is wrong.
• People who want them to change are confused.
• What you think about them doesn’t matter to them.
• Their behavior is not hindering their success.
• Changing their behavior is not worth it.

To get people to change their behavior, it is important to have them identify what they value most and somewhat “threaten” that value.

21 Habits That Got You Here But Won’t Get You There

Some people are successful in spite of their behavior.

• Understand that you can be successful in spite of your flaws.
• Recognize our bad behavior.
• Examine your behaviors to see what feelings are attached to them.
• Avoid attacking value to the bad behavior that you associate with success.
• Find a reason to change, an example that will act as a positive reinforcement.

Marshall Goldsmith exhibits 21 behaviors that alienate people, that you need to stop and that are simple to correct.

Habit #1. Winning too much

In the case, the urge to win is strong and is triggered in any situation, whether it matters or not.

However, the need to win can limit your success because it can destroy relationships.

Habit #2. Adding too much value

Another habit of smart people is always feeling the need to add value to every discussion, to run the show.

They need to let everybody know that they already know or that they know a better way.

The need to add value is simple a variation of the need to win.

Habit #3. Passing judgment

Passing judgement pushes people away because people do not like to be rated or critiqued.

Imposing your standards on people, approving or disapproving of people’s decision will make you seem unwelcoming and disagreeable.

Habit #4. Making destructive comments

Some people make destructive comments without thinking: they put people down, they hurt them or assert themselves as their superiors.

This habit of making hurtful and sarcastic remarks quickly erodes teamwork and cooperation.

It can stem from a habit of always being candid or from a need to sound sharp and witty.

Habit #5. Starting with “No”, “But” or “However”

Starting with “No”, “But” or “However” says that whatever the other person is saying is wrong and what you are saying is right.

The use of these negative qualifiers comes from a need to win and defend your position.

Habit #6. Telling the world how smart we are

The need to demonstrate how smart you are is a variation of the need to win, to gain people’s admiration and to communicate that you are two steps ahead of everyone else.

Habit #7. Speaking when angry

Anger can be a valuable management tool but it does not guarantee how people will react to your emotional outbursts.

However, anger is not a leadership tool. Using anger as a tool says that you are out of control and that you cannot lead. It stifles your ability to change and brands you as being emotionally volatile.

Habit #8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”

Everybody avoids negative people in the workplace.

Negative people find problems to every one of your solutions.

They are not helpful. They don’t add value but they want to demonstrate that their knowledge is superior to everybody else’s.

Habit #9. Withholding information

Withholding information is part of corporate culture and is used to gain power.

People who withhold information answer questions with a question, tend to be passive aggressive and promote mistrust.

It becomes important to improve your communications skills, to make sharing information a priority, and to inform people what you are up to.

Habit #10. Failing to give proper recognition

People who are unable to praise and reward, who don’t recognize the contribution of others technically withhold information.

People who are not recognized feel unsuccessful, unappreciated, forgotten and ignored.

Habit #11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve

The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.

People who claim credit withhold praise and congratulations, overlook the right people, deprive them from recognition.

People who claim credit are thieves and need to win. Whether you are the perpetrator or the victim of credit hogging:

• Write down every time you congratulate yourself per day.
• Review your list and discern who deserves credit.

Habit #12. Making excuses

Making excuses is not a viable leadership strategy and stops self-development.

Excuses are different from explanation. However, most people use excuses to explain their failures.

Habit #13. Clinging to the past

The past explains a lot of our behavior.

Most people live in the past because they can blame others for things that happened to them.

However, clinging to the past is unhealthy. The past cannot be changed, rewritten or excuses. It can only be accepted.

Habit #14. Playing favorites

Some leaders unknowingly play favorites.

They encourage people who serve them, praise them and admire them unconditionally.

Playing favorites is dangerous because you select the wrong people, you favor people who don’t necessarily like you, you fail to recognize the people who deserve it.

Habit #15. Refusing to express regret

People who refuse to express regret are unable to forgive, to apologize, to admit their wrongs, to cede power or control.

Refusing to apologize can create a toxic workplace. However, apologizing is powerful tool.

Habit #16. Not listening

Lack of attention is one of the most common bad habits in the workplace.

Not listening to someone demonstrates that you are impatient, don’t care about what they are saying, that they are wasting your time, that you don’t understand what they are saying.

Habit #17. Failing to express gratitude

Expressing gratitude is a powerful and essential tool to success.

Habit #18. Punishing the messenger

Punishing the messenger tend to attack those who blow the whistle and who bring bad news to us.

Habit #19. Passing the buck

The need to blame everyone but ourselves.

Passing the buck means finding a scapegoat, blaming others for our mistakes.

Leaders who pass the buck are difficult to follow because they don’t take responsibility for their actions.

Habit #20. An excessive need to be “me”

People who feel the need to be themselves hold on to behaviors they think intrinsically define them.

They refuse to change because they see it as being inauthentic.

The truth is they have a limited definition of themselves.

Habit #21. Goal obsession

Goal obsession can drive to success but it can also drive to failure.

Goal obsession or obsessing over the wrong goals become negative when you force yourself to achieve your goals in spite of the bigger picture, of your manners and your character.

How To Overcome These 21 Habits?

To dispel these habits, it is important to learn what type of information is appropriate to share, when and how to convey information, who to ask for information, how to discern useful information.

To overcome these 21 habits:

1. Ask for feedback. Change does not happen with negative feedback but with honest and helpful feedback.
2. Get feedback on your own from your surroundings and from how people react to you.
3. Learn to apologize for your bad behavior to the people who matter most to you. By apologizing, you mend broken relationships and overcome negative emotions.
4. Demonstrate changed behavior or your intention to change your behavior.
5. Listen more than you speak and listen with respect.
6. Express gratitude.
7. Follow up on your progress by asking your coworkers.
8. Discuss the behavior you are changing to one person and ask them for suggestions in the future.

Review

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith is a very insightful book. It serves as a workplace guide of the things not to do.

It is written for leaders and for people who want to move up in life and at work.

According to Marshall Goldsmith, everybody has a at least six to eight habits that need to be stopped. From the look of it, we are all guilty of these habits.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith is definitely a good place to start when you are looking to improve, when you are looking to understand the people and the different dynamics in the workplace.

Let me know below what you think about this book!

Favorite quote(s)

We have to stop couching all our behavior in terms of positive or negative. Not all behavior is good or bad. Some of it is simply neutral. Neither good nor bad.

the higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.

As we advance in our careers, behavioral changes are often the only significant changes we can make.

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

Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often. And yet for some reason, we are cheap and chary with gratitude—as if it were rare Bordeaux wine that we can serve only on special occasions. Gratitude is not a limited resource, nor is it costly. It is as abundant as air. We breathe it in but forget to exhale.

Ratings 4/5

Author

Marshall Goldsmith