What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful

What Got You Here Won't Get You There How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith (based on 209 customer reviews)

(Hardcover)
Edition: 1
Author: Marshall Goldsmith
Publisher: Hyperion

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Most useful review as voted by customers:
218 out of 237 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/25/07

Too Late for Me

Had I had access to the ideas in Marshall Goldsmith's book years ago, I would probably be better off.

At my advanced age, I have spent too much time working for myself. Sure, I recognize the importance of teams and team work. But I refer descending from my aerie, joining the team, completing the project and returning to the solace of personal contemplation Years ago, I found this works best for me.

Goldsmith, an executive coach, argues in his book What Got You Here Won't Get You There, that success delusion, holds most of us back. We, (read I):

1. Overestimate our (my) contribution to a project.
2. Take credit, partial or complete, for successes that belong to others.
3. Have an elevated opinion of our (my) professional skills and our (my) standing among our (my) peers.
4. Ignore the failures and time-consuming dead-ends we (I) create.
5. Exaggerate our (my) projects' impact on net profits by discounting the real and hidden costs built into them.

All of these flaws are borne out of success, yet here is where the book becomes interesting. Unlike others, Goldsmith does limit himself to teaching us (me) what to do. He goes the next step. He teaches us (me) what to stop. He does not address flaws of skill, intelligence or personality. No, he addresses challenges in interpersonal behavior, those egregious everyday annoyances that make your (my) workplace more noxious that it needs to be. They are the:

1. Need to win at all costs.
2. Desire to add our (my) two cents to every discussion.
3. Need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we (I) think make us sound witty and wise.
5. Overuse of "No," "But" or "However."
6. Need to show people we (I) are (am) smarter than they think we (I) are (am.)
7. Use of emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Need to share our (my) negative thoughts, even if not asked.
9. Refusal to share information in order to exert an advantage.
10. Inability to praise and reward.
11. Annoying way in which we overestimate our (my) contribution to any success.
12. Need to reposition our (my) annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
13. Need to deflect blame from ourselves (myself) and onto events and people from our (my) past.
14. Failure to see that we (I) am treating someone unfairly.
15. Inability to take responsibility for our (my) actions.
16. Act of not listening.
17. Failure to express gratitude.
18. Need to attack the innocent, even though they are usually only trying to help us (me).
19. Need to blame anyone but ourselves (me).
20. Excessive need to be "me."
21. Goal obsession at the expense of a larger mission.

It is too late for me. I am too dysfunction. If there is still hope for you, this book is a witty, well-written start to addressing your unconscious, annoying habits that limit your ability to achieve a higher level of success.

123 out of 143 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/12/07

His best book yet

First, full disclosure: I LOVE Marshall Goldsmith. He is a regular guest speaker at my course "Creativity and Personal Mastery" at both Columbia Business School and London Business School. He generously contributed a blurb for my book "Are YOU Ready to Succeed: Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life". He has given me sage advice many times. He is a good friend and trusted colleague.

Despite our relationship I have not reviewed any of his other books. Most are quite good but I am not sure that I would recommend any with the possible exception of Leader of the Future 1 & 2. (More disclosure - I have a small piece in the latter).

This book is different. Run and get it. I'll tell you why.

Marshall is lean as a rail, bald with a fringe of white hair and he cackles infectiously. If he was in a line up and you were picking persons that you thought would be spellbinding orators, you would pass on him. Yet, clad in his trademark green T-shirt and khaki trousers, he has repeatedly held my entire class in thrall. Many, many persons have told me that they got so much from his talk and thanked me for inviting him.

It is this voice, conversational and common-sensical, that comes through in this book. The same voice comes through in his magazine columns but not in his other books. And it is gold.

His insights are powerful. Here is an example: Have you ever had a subordinate come to you with a great idea? Your eyes light up and you exclaim "Brilliant!" You praise her effusively and suggest ways in which that idea could be made even better. In your mind you are being a supportive boss. Then you sit back and wait for her to follow through. But somehow she doesn't. The excitement and passion are simply not there. You chalk her down as "Lacks implementation effectiveness" and never even consider your own role in this failure. Some variation of this has happened to me many times and I never could figure out why.

What you have done is "added too much value". Your comment of "brilliant" is a judgment and your suggestions for improvement are actually a takeover of her idea. Maybe you improved her original idea by 10% but you reduced her commitment by 50% or more. She no longer feels pride of ownership and this is what is reflected in the lackluster follow on performance.

So what should you do instead? Read the book to find out!!

Here is another example: The entire corporate world is hung up on the notion of feedback. When is the last time you jumped up and down with excitement, singing and dancing, at the thought of receiving 'feedback' from your boss? (You should see Marshall enact this roleplay - he is a SCREAM!!) Feedback brings about anxiety, defensiveness and self-justification. Marshall has a better way - feedforward. In essence the focus is on what needs to be done now to achieve a goal you want to reach instead of what you did right or wrong in the past. Trust me, it works a whole lot better.

There are many, many such insights. I was - and perhaps still am - guilty of "winning too much". I'll bet that you are also. But I am now explicitly aware of it and know that I am better than I was.

The great thing about Marshall's work is that the principles are very easily extrapolable far beyond your worklife. Innumerable persons have become better parents, children and spouses by applying them.

Marshall aims to make you a better manager and a more effective executive. But in the process he also makes you a better human being. And that is why I applaud him so strongly.

[...]

51 out of 55 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 2/2/07

You Can Get There From Here

"What Go You Here Won't Get You There" is an exceptional book, a powerhouse of information, insight and instruction.

The author addresses a particular audience: successful people who need to make a change to continue to be successful. It difficult to get people in that group to change, since they have reason to think they're pretty darn good anyway. Additionally, It is difficult to convince them that the very skills that got them where they are may be damaging their current success or preventing them from going further. So when he shows you exactly how to pull off such a miracle, you are going to be extremely impressed.

What is more impressive is the lavish detail Goldsmith provides to help you apply, on your own, the same process which he is paid $250,000 to undertake for each executive he coaches. He gives generously, tells all that you need, holds back nothing relevant. He richly illustrates his points with stories and examples that are so right-on-the-dime that you fully understand each point he makes. Yet, the writing is lean and tightly organized, packed into little over 200 pages.

Since you will want to read the book several times in study mode, the author's ability to be succinct is a very handy feature. And you will want to study the book carefully, because you will understand that this could be a real career-changer for you. In fact, it could be a real life-changer for you. The changes he describes are valuable in anyone's career or in their personal lives. They are all about interpersonal relations.

Goldsmith divides the book into four sections. In section one, he discusses why people resist change, what false beliefs obstruct change and how people have overcome those limiting beliefs. In section two, he lists, defines and describes the twenty most common harmful habits in interpersonal relations, with brief illustrations of how to handle them, specifically. In section three, he explains the change process. Exactly. I stand in awe of his eloquence. This is everything-you-ever-needed-to-learn about how to change. About how to make that change visible to others. About how to enlist others in the process of making the right change and making it last. In section four, he enumerates several important "rules" of change and shares various other analyses and insights that help complete your understanding of why and how to make effective, lasting change. This compendium of wisdom shows you how the author does what he does so well. You will be empowered to do the same for yourself.

You don't need to wait until you're wildly successful and need to break bad habits. Start from wherever you are in your progress through life and career and learn how to be powerfully successful in interpersonal relations by avoiding the bad habits or correcting any you may have.

29 out of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 2/27/07

Add Good Style to Your Good Substance

What Got You Here Won't Get You There is an intriguing look into the nuances between those who climb to the top of the corporate ladder and those who fall just short, while everyone applauds their fall. We all have trouble seeing ourselves as others see us. Marshall Goldsmith takes dead aim at that problem by describing his unique methods for coaching candidates for top jobs into the corner offices.

While that's intriguing in and of itself, Dr. Goldsmith also reveals what he usually finds in such detail that you'll see the shadow of yourself spread out across the pavement in front of you. He does this so well that I felt truly mortified to think of the times when I fell for the many bad habits (that stall career and company progress) that he so eloquently describes here.

What are these bad habits? I've paraphrased them below:

Letting winning get in the way of relationships you need
Dropping too many ideas on those who work for you
Being judgmental rather than helpful
Slamming people in public or behind their backs
Making comments that indicate you disagree with everyone that's just been said
Showing off how smart you think you are
Saying anything in anger
Being negative
Keeping secret what others need to know
Not recognizing the contributions others make
Claiming undeserved credit
Refusing to take responsibility for bad results
Being focused on the past
Favoring those who agree with you
Not apologizing
Ignoring what others are saying or shutting them up
Being ungrateful
Shooting the messenger who brings bad news
Blaming others for everything
Insisting on sticking with you bad habits after you're aware of them

Dr. Goldsmith also tells a lot of stories about how he struggles in some of these areas; I thought the best lessons came from those examples. It's clearly a lot easier to describe what needs to be done than to do it.

For those who are or want to be top executive coaches, here's a chance to learn a lot about how a master does it. He relies on lot of 360 degree interviews which are repeated to test for progress (or regression). Dr. Goldsmith also tries to open up bosses, peers, and subordinates so that they try to support the executive who is trying to change.

I was particularly impressed by Dr. Goldsmith's compensation plan: He only gets paid if an executive improves in the eyes of those who work with the executive.

Realize that his perspective is on those who have great technical and leadership skills . . . but who have interpersonal bad habits that are killing performance. Turn some of these negatives into neutrals or less negatives, and great results may follow.

In a sense, this book is a good companion to Know-How by Ram Charan who looks at those who have great interpersonal skills as leaders but don't have the technical ability to know what to do. If you pay attention to the lessons in both books, you'll probably do better.

Ultimately, I was, however, skeptical of Dr. Goldsmith's suggestions for how you might duplicate his process on your own. I suspect you'd be better off to give this book to someone who is a coach and ask them to help you by playing the Marshall Goldsmith role.

Fans of Buddhism will enjoy reading Dr. Goldsmith's many perspectives on executive life drawn from those sources.

21 out of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 2/7/07

This was eye opening

Reality strikes you quickly when reading this book. Many success books focus on mantras like "You're in it to win" and "Toot your own horn" and "Never regret only learn". While these are good suggestions, they appear shallow after reading Marchall Goldsmith's book. For example he suggests that you can win too much, you can talk too much about yourself and you can focus too much on learning from your mistakes and not enough on admitting them to your peers and employees. This is valuable advice.

The author separates goal obsession as a distinct problem because many people become so focused on accomplishing a goal that they forget the mission. This can easily happen. For example, you may want to become a manager or executive manager some day and so you decide to go back to college. However, ten months later, when you are making decisions about the classes to take, you find yourself selecting classes you think you would enjoy instead of classes that will give you the skills you'll need as an executive manager. Why? You're focugin on the goal of getting that advanced degree and not on the mission of becoming an exectutive manager.

The author gives the solution of F\feedback. The suggestion is that we cannot know how we really are in the workplace and life without feedback. This feedback can come from our managers, peers and employees. It can come from our family, friends and neighbors. He suggests that the feedback process should involve four commitments:

-Let go of the past

-Tell the truth

-Be supportive and helpful - not cynical or negative

-Pick something to improve yourself - so everyone is focused more on improving than judging

From here, the author moves on to specific actions such as apologizing and listening that will help you get "there".

Finally, the book reveals change and how to accomplish it in personal ways. Overall, I felt the book was enlightening and well worth the read. It does take the phrase, "If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always got" to a new level. Tom Carpenter.

19 out of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/24/07

Marshall Unplugged- and at his best

What Got You Here Won't Get You There is Marshall Goldsmith at his best and unplugged- written from his heart. Reading the book is easy because it is just like sitting down and talking to Marshall- which is always fun and never dull. (Full disclosure- I have worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Marshall as part of a dynamic coaching duo over the past 9 months; and I have been informally mentored and coached by Marshall for nearly three years.) Marshall has honed a system to teach people to identify and implement the actions and the attitudes required to really go for it- to run full tilt at the goals that have previously been only daydreams- the goals that seemingly required just "too much"- too much time, too much effort, too much risk of failure- so they remained sidelined and life remained on simmer. This book offers a winning playbook- Marshall's proven coaching methods and tips- for getting off the sidelines and back into the game which is, after all, your one and only life.

You will want to read this book- it is user-friendly- and it will get you laughing. You can read it on a plane trek because even though it is substantive, it is entertaining and it is cut-to-the-chase. In every page, you can feel Marshall's energy, his passion, his nonjudgmental attitude, and his enthusiasm about how we can all, Marshall included, get better at whatever it is that we want to pursue. Plus it is funny- Marshall's humor shines through especially in his stories of how he can, just like the rest of us, forget his own advice and end up having to backpedal to apologize and to commit to getting better. Marshall gets you to laugh at and with him; and that makes it easier to laugh at your own human nature in those passages when he describes instances in which you may have regressed to those human levels that keep us all from being our best. And then you will realize that you really can choose change and make it happen with the any one or all of the simple action steps contained in this book.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There is a bargain- for the price of a cheeseburger, you can change your life. The book provides the cliff notes of Marshall's coaching methodology- a system for which top global leaders seek out, pay top dollar, and wait for availability- because it is that effective. When (not `if') you put Marshall's coaching tips into play in your own life, you will have a shot at getting off the sidelines and running full tilt to reach out and grab your own professional and personal goals. You will learn what it is that got you where you are- and why it isn't going to be enough to get you past the plateau on which you sit. And you will learn, best of all, how to get yourself off of your current resting spot- off of the sidelines and moving forward full speed ahead and enjoying the ride.

What Got You Here Won't Get You There really is Marshall unplugged and in top form. I admit it- I am a nerd who loves to read; I have read most of what Marshall has written; and he is a prolific writer. But this book is better because it captures the magic of being with Marshall. The stories he tells about his own lapses into being human- instances in which he neglects to follow his own best advice- are true Marshall. Use this as your playbook for life- the simple instructions provide a tried-and-true system that can be put to use to engage yourself to bring the best that you have to offer to any challenge and to step up for the next level of play.

15 out of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 1/5/07

Insightful thoughts based on proven approaches

I have had the pleasure of working with Marshall on several projects. His simple, insightful and practical solutions offered in this book are right on target. He and I worked on a project and article based on 85,000 responses and all of the solutions that he offers are entirely consistent with our findings in that study. He has taken the research and made it easy to understand and, in the usual practical approach offered by Marshall, highly relevant and implementable. Well done Marshall.

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