What got you here won’t get you there by Marshall Goldsmith.
[Wonderful personal development tips to help in anyone’s life]
Most of us in our workplace delude ourselves about our achievements, our status and out contributions. We,
- Overestimate our contribution to a project;
- Take credit, partial or complete, for success that truly
belong to others
- Have an elevated opinion of our professional skills and
standing among our peers;
- Conveniently ignore the costly failures and
time-consuming dead-ends we have created.
- Exaggerate our project’s impact on profitability by
discounting real and hidden costs.
Four
key beliefs help us to become successful and they are
- Past
performance
- their
ability to influence their success (rather than just being lucky)
- their
optimistic belief that their success will continue in the future
- their
sense of control over their own destiny (as opposed to being controlled by
external forces)
Each can make it tough for us to change and that is the paradox of success. This makes us superstitious.
20 habits that hold you back from the top
- Winning
too much
- Adding
too much value
- Passing
judgments
- Starting
with ‘no’ but’ or ‘however’
- Telling
the world how smart we are
- Speaking
when angry
- Negativity
or ‘let me explain why that won’t work’
- Withholding
information
- Failing
to give proper recognition
- Claiming
credit that we don’t deserve
- Making
excuses
- Clinging
to the past
- Playing
favorites
- Refusing
to express regret
- Not
listening
- Failing
to express gratitude
- Punishing
the messenger
- Passing
the buck
- An
excessive need to be ‘me’.
The higher we go, the more your problems are behavioral.
At the higher levels of organizational life, all the leading players are technically skilled and they are smart. All other things are equal, your people skills (or lacks of them) become more pronounced the higher you go.
How can we change for the better?
The 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.
The skills that separate the near-great from the great.
- Listen
- Don’t
interrupt
- Don’t
finish the other’s sentence
- Don’t
say ‘I knew that’
- Don’t
even agree with the other person
- Don’t
use the words, ‘non’ but' & 'however'
- Don’t
be distracted. Don’t let your eyes or attention wander elsewhere while the
other person is talking
- Maintain
your end of the dialogue by asking intelligent questions that a) show you
are paying attention, b) more the conversation forward, and c) require the
other person to talk (while you listen)
- Eliminate
any striving to impress the other person with how smart of funny you are.
Your only aim is to the other person feel that he or she is accomplishing
that.
Eight step method for changing our interpersonal relationship and making these changes permanent.
- You
might not have a disease that behavioral change can cure
- Pick
the right thing to change
- Don’t
delude yourself about what you really must change
- Don’t
hide from the truth you need to hear
- There
is no ideal behavior
- If
you can measure it, you can achieve it
- Monetize
the result, create a solution
- The
best time to change is now
