CIOIN

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

By Marshall Goldsmith

Published by Profile Books.

Rs 295

Happy are they that can hear their detractions and put them to mending. — William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing) 

The pages of Book Club almost always discuss books that help extend you as a leader, as a business executive and as a CIO. In a way, they’re prescriptive, their pages are all about what you could do. How then do you deal with a book that’s  all about what you shouldn’t?  

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is about what gets in the way of successful people being more successful. 

And, who better to know about that than Marshall Goldsmith, an expert on leaders and leadership, recently recognized as the ‘Most Influential Leadership Thinker’ in the world at the Thinkers 50 Conference (sponsored by Harvard Business Review). An executive coach and author, Goldsmith says his greatest accomplishment is helping people have a better life—and helping people help the people around them have better lives.

This particular book got off the ground when his mentor Peter Drucker said: “We spend a lot of time helping leaders learn what to do. We don’t spend enough time helping them learn what to stop.” 

Often, what holds people back, he states: “are simple behavioral tics—bad habits that we repeat dozens of times a day in the workplace—which can be cured by (a) pointing them out, (b) showing the havoc they cause, and (c) demonstrating that with a slight behavioral tweak we can achieve a much more appealing affect.” 

Thus he puts the spotlight on 21 of our most irritating habits, including clinging to the past, playing favorites, withholding information and failing to express gratitude. Such habits, he believes, “are transactional flaws performed by one person against another ... that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be.” 

For anyone in a leadership position, it’s tough enough admitting that they’re flawed creatures. But, making the leap to realizing that these flaws are impacting others in a toxic way can be both uplifting and downright depressing.

Goldsmith peppers his text with anecdotes of real situations which contain little leadership lessons in themselves. As he put it: “If you read the book, it’s filled with funny stories. It’s temping to read and say, What a bunch of idiots. But the idiots in the book have IQs of 150, CEOs of multibillion dollar companies, and they are the ones that are trying to get better. They are not idiots at all..”

Goldsmith asks us to question ourselves and points us in the direction of what we need to change. For instance,  he asked one of his coaching clients what he learned from being a CEO of a big company.  The CEO said he had learned that his “suggestions became orders”.  As CEO, he told Golsmith, “you win. You don’t have to prove you’re right, prove you’re smart, you win anyway.”

The problem with many us is that we are achievers, used to winning. That is what we continue to do. But, as Goldsmith observes, once we get to the top, we have to quit doing that. Ford CEO Alan Mulally once told Goldsmith:  “Leadership is not about me. It’s about them. And that is hard.”

A few years ago, I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Goldsmith deliver a keynote on this very subject. Some of the lessons I learnt then caused me to look deep within and make an effort to change. I can vouch for the good that has followed. I commend this book to you. Do get hold of a copy, and give one to anyone you deeply care for. Paraphrasing a hero to both Dr. Goldsmith and me, Buddha: Please just use what works for you and let go the rest.