What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

My Notes on “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith:

20 Bad Habits

1. Winning too much (needing to win at all costs in all situations)
2. Adding too much value (the overwhelming desire to add our 2 cents into every discussion)
3. Passing judgment (rating others and imposing our standards)
4. Making destructive comments (needless sarcasm that we think makes us sound sharp and witty)
5. Starting with “No”, “But” or “However” (Which sends the message “you’re wrong)
6. Telling the world how smart we are (the need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are)
7. Speaking when angry
8. Negativity or “Let me explain why that won’t work” (The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked)

1. Withholding information (to gain advantage)
2. Failing to give proper recognition (the inability to praise and reward)
3. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve (overestimating our contribution)
4. Making excuses
5. Clinging to the past (deflecting blame away from ourselves to past events or people)
6. Playing favourites
7. Refusing to express regret
8. Not listening
9. Failing to express gratitude
10. Punishing the messenger
11. Passing the buck
12. An excessive need to be “me” (exalting our faults as virtues coz that’s who I am)

How to keep me committed to the project

“Good idea, but it’d be better if you tried it this way” – improves my idea by 5 percent but reduces my commitment to executing it by 50 percent because you’ve taken away my ownership of the idea.  Whatever we gain in the form of a better idea is lost many times over in our employees diminished commitment to the concept.

The seven phases of successful projects:

1. Study the situation
2. Identify the problem
3. Report findings and recommendations
4. Woo-up – get superiors to approve
5. Woo laterally – get your peers to agree
6. Woo down – get employees to accept
7. Assign it to he appropriate people to implement

How to listen and shine in the other persons eyes – by suppressing your desire to shine

• Listen
• Don’t interrupt
• Don’t finish the other person’s sentences
• Don’t say “I knew that.”
• Don’t use the words “no”, “but” and “however”
• Maintain your end of the dialogue by asking intelligent questions that
  • Show you’re paying attention
  • Move the conversation forward
  • Require the other person to talk
• Eliminate the striving to impress the other person with how smart or funny you are. Your only aim is to let the other person feel that he is accomplishing that