Book Summary Preview : What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

The Big Idea

Many of us by this time have achieved a certain level of success. In whatever field, you may feel that your hard work is paying off, and you’re nearing the top of the ladder. But you may also think that there is something that’s keeping you from the next level of achievement. Something seems to be missing which holds you back from going even higher.

“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith gives advice to high achievers and leaders on how they can further their success. An expert on leadership coaching, Goldsmith helps successful people overcome habits, flaws and other traits that keep people from becoming even better in their careers. Written with Mark Reiter, this book lets you tap even deeper into your potential for success.

The Trouble With Success

The trouble with successful people is that they often don’t have a good idea about who they are, how they behave, and how their behavior is coming across to the people that matter– their bosses, their colleagues, subordinates, customers, and clients. Successful people often think they have all the answers, but others may see this as arrogance.

Successful people often overestimate their contribution to a project, take credit for successes that belong to others, have an elevated opinion of their skills and standing, ignore costly failures and deadends they have created, and exaggerate their project’s impact on profits or the company’s reputation.

In short, successful people often have delusions about their success. And these delusions affect the way they behave to others in negative ways. Which, in turn, keeps them from achieving greater success.

The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back From The Top

If you’re one of these successful people, you need to make a commitment to change some of the annoying habits you’ve acquired on your way up the success ladder. And to do this, you need to believe that these changes will be to your own best interest.

Most of the time, these flaws are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior. In fact, the higher you go, the more your problems become behavioral. It doesn’t make you a bad person; these are personal failings that you have either failed to recognize or are simply not aware of. But knowing about them puts you on the path of overcoming them.

Habit #1. Winning Too Much

Successful people always want to win. They argue too much because they always want their point of view to prevail. They put down other people because they want to position others beneath them. They ignore people, withhold information, play favorites – all to give themselves an edge over others.

Habit #2. Adding Too Much Value

Successful people are used to telling people what to do, instead of listening to others. When other people talk, share ideas, or give opinions, they tend to communicate that a) they already knew that, and b) they know a better way or a way to improve the idea.

This is what adding too much value means. And while the intentions may be good, it is extremely discouraging for others, and their ideas. Instead of surfacing ideas and brainstorming on solutions, all that comes out are your ideas.

Habit #3. Passing Judgment

Successful, and even not-so-successful people can’t help passing judgment on others, or judging everything people tell us. Often successful people can’t help saying “Great idea”, “Bad idea”, to everything they hear. And while there’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion in the normal give and take of business talk, it’s not appropriate to pass judgment when we specifically ask people for their opinions.

If we ask people for ideas, or for advice, we can’t turn around and then pass judgment on whether what they said was good or bad. We just need to say thank you.

Habit #4. Making Destructive Comments

Destructive comments are the cutting sarcastic remarks that we spew out daily, with or without intention, that serve no purpose than to put people down, hurt them, or assert ourselves as superior to others. They are different from comments that add too much value, because they add nothing but pain.

They include comments like telling people their ideas weren’t too bright, complimenting people with a smirk, or suddenly reminding people of a mistake or failure they had a long time ago to embarrass them.

Destructive habits are an easy habit to fall into, especially among people who habitually rely on candor as an effective management tool. But candor can easily become a weapon.

Before making a comment, you need to ask yourself: will this comment help the one I’m giving it to or talking about?

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

When you start a sentence with “no,” “but,” “however,” or any variation of these, no matter how friendly your tone or how many cute mollifying phrases you throw in to acknowledge the other person’s feelings, the message to the other person is: You are wrong and I am right.

To stop this habit, stop trying to defend your position and start monitoring how many times you begin remarks with “no,” “but,” or “however.”

Habit #6. Telling The World How Smart We Are

Successful people need to win people’s admiration. We need to let other people know that we are at least their intellectual equal if not superior. We need to be the smartest person in the room.

We do it whenever we agree with some offering us some advice, whenever we nod our heads impatiently or drum our fingers while people are talking, whenever our body language suggests that we are not hearing something we haven’t heard before.

The first step to stopping this behavior is to recognize that you’re doing it. And then stop trying to announce to people how smart you are. Remember: being smart turns people on. Announcing how smart you are turns people off.

Habit #7. Speaking When Angry

When you get angry, you are usually out of control. It’s hard to lead people when you are out of control. But the worst thing about anger is how it stifles our ability to change. Once you get a reputation for emotional volatility, you are branded for life.

All of us have people or things in our life that drive us crazy, whom we hate with a passion. But you need to remember that getting angry does not improve the situation and life’s too short to waste on feeling bad. And, if you keep your mouth shut, no one can ever know how you really feel.

 

Want to read the rest of this summary? click here >>