Featured Guest: Marshall Goldsmith, executive coach and author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. For more, visit his blog on hbr.org.
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ANNOUNCER: Hello, and welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Online. In this week’s episode, Harvard Management Update Editor, Christina Bielaszka-DuVernay, talks with executive coaching guru, Marshall Goldsmith, author of the new book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. And in our HBR In Brief segment, Managing Change: the Art of Balancing.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: Hello, I’m pleased to have with me today, Marshall Goldsmith, a faculty member of the Executive Education Program at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and the author of the recently published book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, which is excerpted in the June issue of Harvard Management Update. Marshall is best known, however, for his work as an executive coach to leaders for major companies around the world. Based on this work, he identifies in his book 20 habits that hold leaders back. Thank you for joining us, Marshall.
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Happy to be here.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: You quote Peter Drucker as once saying to you, we spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.
In your book, one self-limiting behavior you single out is the need to win too much. What do you mean by that? Aren’t leaders supposed to focus on winning?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Well, the problem is not that we shouldn’t win. The problem is we shouldn’t win all of the time. The problem with many successful people is if it’s important, we want to win. If it’s critical, we want to win. If it’s trivial, we want to win. Or if it’s meaningless, we want to win anyway. We just like to win.
And I use a case study in the book, and I’ve done this with hundreds of my clients, 75% fail. You want to go to dinner at Restaurant X. Your husband, wife, partner, significant other wants to go to dinner at Restaurant Y. In a heated argument, you go to Restaurant Y. This was not your choice. The food tastes awful. The service is terrible.
Option A. Critique the food. Point out our partner was wrong. This mistake could have been avoided if they would listen to me. Option B. Shut up, eat this stupid food, have a nice evening. What would I do? What should I do? 75% of my clients, what would I do? Critique the food. What should I do? Shut up.
What’s important in winning is, to scale it back and to win the big stuff. And the higher up you go, the more you get to win anyway. You need to learn to stop winning. Let other people win.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: Would you share a story about a business leader who learned to dial back his or her drive to win? And the benefits that resulted?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Yes, I can mention a specific example. One of my good clients is a man named JP Garnier. JP is the CEO of Glaxosmithkline, one of the most valuable companies in the world. And I asked JP, what did you learn about leadership since you’ve been a CEO? He said, I’ve learned a very, very hard lesson. He said, my suggestions become orders. If I want them to become orders, they become orders. If I don’t want them to become orders, they still become orders. If they’re smart, they’re orders. If they’re stupid, they’re orders.
I ask him, what did you learn from me when I was your coach that helped you the most? He said, the one lesson that you taught me that was most helpful was before I speak, stop and breathe– [INHALE AND EXHALE] –and ask myself one question, is it worth it? And he said, as CEO of this company, 50% of the time before I leap in and win and prove I’m right, if I stop and breathe, and I ask myself, is it worth it? You know what I decide? Am I right? Maybe. Is it worth it? No.
By the way, here’s a guy who scores on openness and ability to hear feedback and striving to see differences of opinion. Dramatic positive improvements.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: Let’s hear about another of the 20 behaviors that leaders need to stop. Playing favorites. It’s such a rich topic that it deserves the fuller treatment than I could give it in the newsletter. In your experience, are leaders generally aware that they play favorites?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: No. This is one where there’s a big gap between the way we see ourselves and the way other people see us. In fact, in terms of all the 360 degree feedback reports I’ve done, playing favorites is one of the two items with the lowest correlation between self assessment and that assessment of others. None of us think we play favorites, but a lot of other people think we play favorites.
Now, if we look at this concept of favoritism, I’ve developed leadership profiles for probably 75 or 80 major companies. These are these profiles of the desired behaviors are outstanding leaders. And the profiles all say great things, like has integrity, helps others, or shows respect, or communicates a clear vision. One item that’s never shown up on any of these inventories– in fact, it’s an item that every company says they do not want is called, effectively sucks up to higher management. Every company says they hate suck ups. Every leader says they hate suck ups. Well, if we all hate suck ups so much, how can so much sucking up goes on?
Well, it goes on because without meaning to, we all tend to play favorites and create an environment where people learn to suck up to us. Now, after listening to this, you’re probably thinking, yes, I’ve seen others do it all the time. I find it disgusting. I would never do it myself. I use a test with my clients to prove to people how they chronically create a suck up environment. It’s a simple test.
I’ll be teaching a large group of people and asking a question. How many of you own a dog that you love? Now they’re all waving their hands in the air. What’s the name of your dog? They’ll say Biffy or Spot or whatever.
Then I’ll say, all right, who gets the most unqualified positive recognition at your home? Would it be the husband or wife? Would it be the kids? Perhaps would it be Biffy the dog? 80% of the time the answer to the question is the dog.
Then I ask people, do you love your dog more than your other family members? They say, no. So I say, well, why is it the dog gets the most positive recognition? They say, well, the dog doesn’t talk back. The dog doesn’t critique me. The dog forgives me when I make a mistake. The dog likes me just the way I am. And when I come home, it’s happy to see me. It wags its little tail, and it even licks me.
In other words, what does the dog do? The dog is a suck up! And what behavior do we reinforce? We reinforce suck ups.
Now, I have a test to help people on this one. If you want to avoid playing favorites, it’s a simple test. Rank order your direct reports four ways. Number one, how much do they like me? You don’t know how much they like you, but what’s important is, how much do you think they like you?
Number two, how much are they like me? How much do they remind me the ever so special and lovely me? This is a different type of favoritism. I see it all the time with engineers. Many engineers play favorites with people they hate. It sounds like this. He’s a jerk, but he’s an engineer. He’s a great guy, but he’s not an engineer. In other words, if you’re not an engineer, you don’t have a brain.
Number three, rank order these people in terms of their contribution to our company and customers. And number four, how much positive recognition do I give them? If we’re honest with ourselves, in 15% to 20% of the cases, recognition is more highly correlated with one or two than it is with three. And we may be falling into a trap we despise in others. What is this trap without meaning to? Playing favorites, and teaching people to suck up to us.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: So what are the destructive consequences of playing favorites? How does that affect what happens in the unit within the company?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Well, one thing it leads to is a big waste of time. For example, let’s look at key stakeholders. If you’re a shareholder, do you really want the employees putting their time and energy into sucking up, looking good, playing games, or do you want the employees putting their time and energy into doing things to creating value? If you’re a customer, do you really want the employees sucking up to the boss, playing games? Or do you want the employees really focused on serving you and meeting your needs?
Well, I think the answer to those questions are very obvious. You know what the customers want. You know what the stakeholders want. And if you’re the CEO, what behavior do you want. This is not behavior that’s really helping the company at all. It’s just behavior that’s designed to ingratiate people with their bosses.
And again, the higher up we go, the more this behavior exhibits itself. I was working with one of the top generals in the army. And I taught in a new general program. And he was very funny. We’re sitting at a table with a bunch of men, and they were all new generals. And he looked at the guys, and he said, men, lately notice when you tell jokes, everybody laughs. Ha ha ha ha ha. He said, you’re not that funny.
And when you say things, everybody writes them down. You’re not really profound. And women want to have sex with you. You’re not handsome. It’s only the star. When you drive that car around the military base, if it has that flag on the front with a star, everyone stops and salutes. He said a monkey could be in the car, they’re still saluting. Don’t let this go to your head.
See, another destructive consequence of playing favorites is, not just what it does to the employees’ time, it’s what it does to the boss. The boss starts believing this stuff. The boss starts letting it go to his or her head. And then the boss starts getting positive recognition for dysfunctional behavior, and starts believing their dysfunctional behavior is OK, when it really is not OK at all.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: So how do you help leaders learn to stop doing this?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Well, it’s the same way you help leaders learn to stop doing everything. What I teach, in a very unique approach to executive coaching, I don’t get paid if my clients don’t get better. Better is not judged by my client. It’s judged by everyone around my client.
So success or failure is not judged by them. It’s judged by coworkers. They get in the habit of reaching out to their coworkers. And they reach out to their coworkers and say, what can I change? How can I do better?
And I help them pick topics. And let’s say this topic was creating a fair environment or creating a meritocracy. How can I do better at creating a positive meritocracy, avoids playing favorites? Then they listen to what everybody says. They can’t critique. They can’t judge. All they can say is thank you.
No matter what people tell them, they can just say thank you. They take notes. They come back and talk to me. I review the notes with them over and over and over again. Then we re-measure their behavior at 8 to 12 months. Re-measure behavior again. And after about a year and a half, guess what? They get better. I get paid, and life is good.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: Final question for you. Can a leopard really change its spots? Your book advises leaders to change their behavior, but by the time people ascend to top leadership positions, aren’t their personalities and habits well established? Can they really alter their behavior in a lasting and meaningful way?
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Well, if people didn’t alter their behavior in a pretty lasting and meaningful way, I’d never get paid. And since they have lots and lots of money, I guess people can change. See, I love this question. And I love the analogy of can a leopard change its spots?
To me, that really hits at the essence of what can change and what cannot change. Leopards really cannot change their spots. You know why? That’s a physiological issue. If it isn’t a physiological defect, people can change.
For example, someone says, well, I’m a listener. I’ve always been a bad listener. I look in their ear. I say, what’s the problem? You got something stuck in there? Why are you a bad listener? You can change. Anybody can change behavior. They have to recognize that they can change.
And by the way, a study was done on executive coaches. Guess what the study showed, shockingly? Coaches who believe that their clients can change or that others can change tend to be much better coaches. Coaches that don’t believe anybody can change, guess what? They’re lousy coaches. Wonder why. If nobody can change, why do coaching in the first place? From my perspective, anybody I work with can change interpersonal behavior. And in fact, that’s the one thing they can change.
At that level of the CEO, they can’t go back to school. They can’t become better technicians. It’s too late. The only thing that can change is behavior. And behavior can change in a massive way. My final example. One of my clients, to prove the point, was a role model for Gordon Gekko in the movie, Wall Street. I don’t know if you saw that movie, but Michael Douglas followed him around to learn how to act like a jerk.
This guy’s score in treating people with respect was a 0.1 percentile. Company hired me to be his coach. I said, well, 0.1 is not very high. What’s the problem? Well, he started going off about that’s just the way he was. Then I asked, how are you at home? Well, he said, I’m totally different at home.
I said, that’s great. Your wife home? Your kids? He said, yeah, I think so. Called this wife. What did she say? You’re a jerk! Check in with the kiddies. Jerk! Jerk! I said, a pattern is beginning to emerge. I said, I don’t care if you change or not. It’s your life. You want to have a funeral that nobody shows up for, other than for business reasons? That’s where this train is headed.
He looked at me, and he thought about it. He said, I’m going to change. I’m not going to change for you or the company. I’m going to change, because I have a 13 year old son. And 30 years from today, if a man like you read a report like that about my son, I would be ashamed that he was my son. He said, my son already acts that way. Wonder where he picked that up. Maybe that was me.
In one year, he got ranked at 53.7 percentile, in terms of treating people with respect. Above the company norm, and the company was very high. Probably deserved even better. He was so far in the hole to start with.
You know what I learned? Anybody can change. Where does motivation for change have come from? Inside the person. I can’t make people change. I don’t try to make people change. My job is to help people change behavior that they believe in their heart is the right thing to do.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: Thank you very much, Marshall, for being with us today.
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH: Thank you for the invitation.
ANNOUNCER: Up next in our HBR In Brief segment, Managing Change: the Art of Balancing.
CHRISTINA BIELASZKA-DUVERNAY: First, the idea in brief. You’ve just announced a major change initiative that will catapult your company ahead of your aggressive competitors. Your employees response? Anger, alarm, alienation, and confusion. Why?
Change is intensely personal, requiring each individual to think, feel, and do things differently. Change is about managing emotions traditionally banned from the workplace. Trust is particularly critical to successful change and particularly difficult to establish in the midst of change.
So how do you win your followers one trusting employee at a time? Picture your change effort as a delicate mobile, made up of content, processes, and employees’ emotions and behaviors. Instead of breaking the mobile into pieces, trying to manage each piece separately, balance that mobile so all the pieces move in concert.
Successful balancing requires one, employee trust, which you build through predictability, clarifying the company’s intentions and ground rules, and walking your talk. And capability. Articulating the role each person will play in the change effort.
And two, employee empowerment. Genuinely inviting everyone to co-create create the company’s desired future. To create this environment of trust and empowerment, you need a powerful support structure, a transition management team.
Next, the idea in practice. The transition management team, or TMT, has these responsibilities. First, establish context for change. Via organizational discussions throughout the company, the TMT spreads the word of the organization’s vision and competitive situation. Individuals and teams can then align their activities with the company’s new direction.
Next, stimulate conversation. The TMT orchestrates early, open-ended conversations about the change among all parts of the company. The payoff? Breakthrough thinking and new insights from everyone.
Next, provide resources. The TMT assigns specific authority to individuals and gives them the resources to do the job properly. The team also can kill off projects not contributing to the larger effort.
Next, coordinate projects. As companies shift into fast paced change programs, teams and projects proliferate, as does confusion. The TMT aligns teams and projects to support the larger change effort and explains to the organization how the pieces fit together.
Next, ensure congruents of messages and behaviors. To protect the change efforts’ credibility, the TMT watches for and addresses inconsistencies among management’s policies, success measures, and rewards. For instance, redirecting managers who espouse empowerment, but then shoot down new ideas.
Next, provide opportunities for joint creation. To provide true opportunity for employees to create the company’s future together, the TMT coordinates and supports the exchange of information employees need to make smart decisions and take effective action.
Next, anticipate and address people problems. Since people issues are at the heart of change, the TMT gathers and distributes information, horizontally and vertically, to address concerns about the change effort.
And finally, prepare the critical mass. The TMT ensures availability of the resources and strategies necessary to replicate and transfer the learning gained from the change effort.
ANNOUNCER: We hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s program. To learn more on these and many other management topics, please visit our website at www.harvardbusinessonline.org. Thanks for listening, and we hope you’ll join us again next week.
