What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/84525.What_Got_You_Here_Won_t_Get_You_There
- When we do what we choose to do, we are committed. When we do what we have to do, we are compliant.
- To achieve the goal of “being nicer.” All you have to do is “stop being a jerk.”
- All you have to do is... nothing. When someone offers a less-than-brilliant idea in a meeting, don’t criticize it. Say nothing. When someone challenges one of your decisions, don’t argue with them or make excuses. Quietly consider it and say nothing. When someone makes a helpful suggestion, don’t remind them that you already knew that. Thank them and say nothing. This is not a semantic game. The beauty of knowing what to stop - of achieving this state of inspired neutrality - is that it is so easy to do.
- The higher you go, the more your problems are behavioral.
- When you start a sentence with “no,” “but,” “however,” or any variation thereof, 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.
- Punishing the messenger: manifests itself in big and little ways. It’s the momentary snort of disgust you exhale when your assistant reports that the boss is too busy to see you.
- Study the twenty annoying habits and you’ll see that at least half of them are rooted in information compulsion. When we add value, or pass judgment, or make destructive comments, or announce that we “already knew that,” or explain “why that won’t work” we are compulsively sharing information. We’re telling people something they don’t know. We’re convinced that we’re making people smarter or inspiring them to do better, when we’re more likely to achieve the opposite effect.
20 worst habits
They don’t happen in a vacuum. They are transactional flaws performed by one person against others. They are:
- Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations - when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
- Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
- Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
- Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
- Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
- Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
- Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
- Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
- Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
- Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
- Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
- Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
- Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
- Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
- Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
- Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
- Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
- Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
- Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
- An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
After identifying your worst one or two bad habits, use the following process to improve your effectiveness:
- Apologize
- Advertise your plan to change
- Listen
- Give thanks
- Follow up monthly for 12-18 months
- Practice feedforward, not feedback: ask for two ideas for future improvement, listen, say thank you, and repeat the process with several other people