A Book Every Working Professional Needs To Read…
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith: Full Book Summary
Three Big Ideas From The Book:
- 21 Interpersonal Habits That are holding you back in your professional life.
- How listening, receiving feedback from the right people, apologizing, thanking, and following up can help you get out of this rut and make you from near great to great.
- Four Beliefs that help us in becoming successful and how those same beliefs barricade our future success.
Introduction:
Certain traits make successful people successful, It can be anything, it can be their work ethic, the way they communicate & connect with people, or their ability to solve complex business problems, some of them are gifted in leading the way, and a lot of other traits & habits that help them in climbing the ladder, these are the habits that got them there.
But as often is the case with success, it comes with its share of pros and cons. Successful people have no idea how they are coming across people in their workplace — their bosses, subordinates, colleagues, & clients.
And that’s not true just for work; the goes for their home life as well. Because in their head they can’t do anything wrong, this is the map that has helped them to reach where they are. They may think, I’m successful and you are not which is their license to think, Why change if it’s working?
Successful people have very few reasons to change their behavior and lots of reasons to stick with the status quo. Their success is the ultimate reinforcement of their behavior. For them, it’s like why fix something that isn’t broken?
Not thinking about what other people think of them has brought out so much success for them in the past, that repeating the same behavior makes complete sense to them because they are not aware that the same habits are sabotaging their further growth and success.
They think that they have all the answers, but others see it as arrogance.
They think they are contributing to a situation with helpful comments, but others see it as butting in.
They think they are open to feedback but in reality, they can’t stand it.
They think that they are too big to, thank or apologize to anyone below them.
This book is all about correcting these problems, they may not seem fatal but repeated long enough they can destroy a golden career. These simple behavioral tice- bad habits that are performed by successful people at the workplace can be corrected through
- Pointing them out
- Showing the havoc they cause among people surrounding them.
- Demonstrating a slight behavioral tweak to achieve a much more appealing effect.
This book is a map that can turn the maze of wrong turns in the workplace into a straight line to the top. This book will help people correct behavioral gaps and blind spots that are blocking them from getting there.
It is broadly divided into Four sections:
Section 1: The Trouble with Success
It briefly discusses four beliefs that bring us success(that got us here) and those same beliefs are now blocking us from getting further. It is because of these beliefs that we resist change and block our path.
Section 2: The twenty-one habits that hold you back from the top
It is an important section that explains the 21 habits that hold us back from the top. These are the roadblocks, blind spots, & faulty behaviors. This section is all about recognizing the problems before we can go ahead and fix them.
Here we are dealing with the challenges of interpersonal behaviors, and everyday annoyances that can have a horrific effect on employees and office culture in general.
Section 3: How we can change for the better
This section offer solutions to the problems discussed in the previous section. A slight tweak in behaviors can bring revolutionary changes to our personal & professional life and how we are perceived among our peers.
Section 4: Pulling out the stops
In which leaders learn how to apply the rules of change and what to stop doing right now.
Three Major Highlights From The Book:
- The Higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.
When you reach a certain position in an organization or your career the problems that are holding your success are not skill-based problems. You can’t climb a corporate ladder without honing your skills. You have already established a reputation for yourself in terms of your skills.
That is why behavioral issues become even more important when you are at the top because it is very difficult to see it yourself and the beliefs that have helped you in climbing the ladder are the same beliefs that will hold you back.
We all have certain attributes that help us land our first job. These are the kind of achievements that goes on your resume. But as we become more successful, those attributes reside in the background- more subtle attributes come to the forefront.
A lot of us judge successful people, not on the basis of their technical skills, we judge them with a moral compass. How they behave with their colleagues, their subordinates, or their customers. The significance of people skills and interpersonal skills far outweigh technical skills when we reach the top.
2. The Magic Move.
Apologizing is the magic move that can set everything straight and take you out of that downward spiral. Saying sorry means that you care about the relationship with the other person, saying sorry means that you have acknowledged your mistakes and you are ready to correct them. Saying sorry means that you are putting your ego aside and not letting it ruin your relationships with your colleagues, clients, and subordinates.
How to make the magic move?
Once you are ready to apologize, Just say those magic words without manipulating them in any way, just say “I’m Sorry and I’ll try to do better in the future” and that’s it. Shut your mouth after that, do not utter a word after that because you will risk diluting your sorry with something you shouldn’t say, or worse you’ll end up justifying your wrong behavior which can bring no good to the whole situation.
In the words of Marshall Goldsmith “Don’t explain it. Don’t complicate it Don’t qualify it. But remember the best apology is to change behavior, so if you do everything correctly but eventually still end up repeating that behavior that got you here in the first place then all of this is of no use at all.”
3. Listening.
The number one interpersonal skill that we can overlook or underestimate is the power of listening. Like any other skill, we overestimate our ability to listen to people. Listening is an art, it is not a passive activity but an active one where your brain is completely engaged.
There are a few rules to follow if you want to become a better listener, Listen with Respect
Think before you speak, and always gauge your response by asking Is it worth it?
How This book can help you?
As you must have figured out by now that interpersonal behavior is the difference maker between being great and near great, between getting gold and settling for the bronze. This book will help you win the gold by fixing the behavioral flaws that are keeping you from becoming great in your personal and professional life.
It recognizes them and through some simple tweaks helps you in seeing those blind spot that is hindering your further success as an individual.
Final Word:
Everyone’s map is different and so is their destination. You don’t have to be a C-level executive to benefit from this book, look at your own personal map and trace the distance between your current location and your desired destination. The attributes that got you to your current location won’t necessarily be the attributes that can get you to your desired location.
Read this book, find those flaws, behaviors, and habits that are keeping you from your desired place and fix them. This book can help you do that and make you excel not only in your professional life but in your personal life as well because almost all of our problems are interpersonal problems.
Thank you for reading till the end and giving your attention to this article.
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