FEBRUARI 2021

How successful leaders can become even more successful according to Marshall Goldsmith

In your life you meet executives who are grounded. They know who they are, how they are perceived by others, where they are going and they make others feel secure around them. Quite generally you see that these are the leaders who continuously look for room for improvement. They are always open to input and to change in order to become even more successful. They are aware that the skills and habits that have taken them this far may not be the right skills and habits to take them further.

The higher you go in organizations and the more successful you are, your people skills and habits are generally what could make a difference to your personal future success. Quite frequently what limits your potential today, tends to be behavioral. Identifying these interpersonal challenges and changing this behavior is not always easy though, particularly even more so for successful people.

In his book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” (subtitled “How Successful People Become Even More Successful”) Marshall Goldsmith focuses on continuous improvement, especially for those people who have already achieved a certain level of success and who currently somehow tend to dilute their success without even being aware. Maybe you are one of the many leaders, who believe that you are successful because you behave in a certain way, while in fact it may very well be that you are successful in spite you behave a certain way. For anyone who aims to be even more successful in the future, a frequent check-in on what skills and habits need changing would significantly improve future success.

In this process of change, let the beliefs which have made you so successful help you instead of work against you:

Belief #1: “I am successful” The good news for successful people is their copious quantity of self-confidence. The ”I am successful” belief is positively correlated with a willingness to take needed risks and to do “what you think is right”. Most leaders are tasked with doing and for that courage is a necessary ingredient. The self-confidence to act as a leader is bolstered by this essential personal belief.

Belief #2: “I choose to succeed” Successful people generally belief they master their own fate and control their own destiny. With this belief the leader has a strong need to be in charge of what to work on to improve. No one else is going to make that choice for them. No one else is going to re-wire who they are.

Belief #3: “I will succeed” The good news for successful people is their copious quantity of self-confidence. The ”I am successful” belief is positively correlated with a willingness to take needed risks and to do “what you think is right”. Most leaders are tasked with doing and for that courage is a necessary ingredient. The self-confidence to act as a leader is bolstered by this essential personal belief.

And let go of any of the habits that Marshall Goldsmith found that are the most common faults and challenges successful people face in interpersonal behaviors:

1. 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.
2. Adding too much value:The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgment:The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
4. Making destructive comments:The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”:The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
6. Telling the world how smart we are:The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
7. Speaking when angry:Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”:The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
9. Withholding information:The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failing to give proper recognition:The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve:The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses:The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
13. 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.
14. Playing favorites:Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret:The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening:The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude:The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger:The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
19. Passing the buck:The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
20. An excessive need to be “me”:Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

The Process of Change: Marshall Goldsmith has developed a seven-step method for changing our interpersonal relationships and for making these changes permanent 

Step 1: Feedback

Obtaining honest, confidential feedback is critical to understanding where we are, where we need to go, what we need to change and to measure our progress. A 360-degree feedback review helps soliciting input from all the people within the organization to identify what you need to improve in your relationships at work. The people in this process will be asked to let go of the past, tell the truth, be supportive and helpful and to choose something to improve for themselves as well.

Step 2: Apologizing

The next step is apologizing. Marshall Goldsmith regards apologizing as “the most magical, healing, restorative gesture human beings can make.” It is the centerpiece of his work with executives who want to get better – because without the apology there is “no recognition that mistakes have been made, there is no announcement to the world of the intention to change, and most important there is no emotional contract between you and the people you care about.” The healing process begins with an apology. The process for apologizing is to say: “I am sorry. I will try to do better in the future.” And then…you say nothing. Don’t explain it. Don’t complicate it. Don’t qualify it. Just apologize and then move on to telling the world.

Step 3: Telling the World, or Advertising

After you apologize, you must advertise. It’s not enough to tell everyone that you want to get better; you have to declare exactly in what area you plan to change. Changing people’s perception of your behavior is a lot harder than actually changing your behavior. Generally, you have to get 100% better in order to 10% credit for it from your coworkers. However, the odds improve considerably if you tell people that you are trying to change. Your odds improve again if you tell everyone how hard you are working at it and repeat the message week after week. And your odds improve even more if you ask everyone for ideas to help you get better. Coworkers become invested in you, they pay attention to you to see if you are paying attention to their suggestions.

Step 4: Listening

80% Of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen. Good listening is an active process, where it is important to think before you speak, listen with respect and always gauge your response by asking yourself whether what you are about to say is worth it and how the other person will feel after hearing it.

Step 5: Thanking

Thanking works because it expresses one of our most basic emotions: gratitude. Saying “Thank you” is a crucial feature of etiquette and being mannerly. “Thank you” can create closure in any potentially explosive discussion and stop potential arguments. It’s music to anyone’s ears.

Step 6: Following Up

Once you master the subtle arts of apologizing, advertising, listening, and thanking, you must follow up – relentlessly. Go back to all coworkers every month and ask for them for comments and suggestions. If you do this your colleagues will eventually begin to accept that you’re getting better – but not because you say so but because it’s coming from their lips. Following up shows that you care about getting better. Following up with your coworkers shows that you value their opinions. And following up consistently shows that you are taking the process seriously. Becoming a better person is an ongoing process. When you involve other people in your continuing progress, you are virtually guaranteeing your continuing success. Marshall Goldsmith shares how he follows up in his life every night to ensure progress.

Step 7: Practicing Feedforward

With the previous six skills, you’re now ready for feedforward Feedforward asks you to do four simple steps: 1. Pick the one behavior that you would like to change which would make a significant, positive difference in your life. 2. Describe this objective in a one-on-one dialogue with anyone you know. 3. Ask that person for two suggestions for the future that might help you achieve a positive change in our selected behavior 4. Listen attentively to the suggestions. Don’t judge, rate, or critique the suggestions in any way. The only response you’re permitted is “Thank you.” Then repeat this four-step process with others. 

Together with your stakeholders define one or two leadership growth areas today that are important to your future success, lie within your control and are observable, measurable and constructive and become even more successful than you are today!

OCTOBER 2020

Why executive coaching is so extremely vital to leadership development?

In his foreword of the book “executive coaching for results” Marshall Goldsmith reminded us why executive coaching is a next evolutionary step in the development of leaders.

Historically, leadership development was largely focused on participants’ involvement in training programs. These programs were generally based upon one completely invalid assumption – if they understand, they will do.

An assumption that turns out to be completely wrong. Maybe not entirely comparable but isn’t it true that the sales of diet books in the United States have skyrocketed over the years, whilst meanwhile the population was becoming more and more obese. Unfortunately, you do not lose weight by reading a book. You lose wight by actually going on a diet and more importantly sticking with it.

Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan have conducted extensive research including 86,000 participants in leadership development programs from eight major corporations and found that “if leaders attend training programs, but then do not discuss what they learn with co-workers and follow up to ensure continued progress – they improve no more than by random chance.

Why do leaders attend training programs and return to work with it short-term but then end up making no real change? The answer is seldom because of a lack of values or a lack of intelligence. They are almost always good people and incredibly smart. The reason why many leaders do not apply what they learn in training when they are “back on the job” is that they are buried in work.

Executive coaching can help leaders bridge the huge gap between understanding what to do and actually doing it. As your coach I stick with you over time and make sure that you do what you know you should do, but have a tendency to “put off until tomorrow” – a tomorrow that (without help) may never come.

Coaching can help high-potential leaders become great leaders!

APRIL 2020

The science of well-being from Prof. Santos (Yale University)

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate to enroll on a course from Yale University Psychology Professor Laurie Santos on the Science of Well Being. A dear friend and former colleague from my time in investment banking, Janneke van den Berkmortel, invited me to join as we are both aware that “Well Being” is such a rewarding part of becoming a more effective leader. Hence, we were both keen to learn from Prof. Santos and interested in how we could implement her knowledge and our experience to the effective use of our clients.

In her lectures so far, Prof. Santos takes us through what Psychological Science and Research says about Well Being and simultaneously we are invited to actively engage in a series of challenges designed to build more productive habits ourselves as well. I have to say the combination of these two is hugely inspiring and rewarding. As someone who enjoys numbers, it helps to learn about theory and to actually see confirmation reflected in Statistics. But to then subsequently translate this theory into hands-on daily practices, truly gives the research substance and its implementors (like myself) an opportunity for factual improvement.

All in all, I am delighted to take part in these lectures and see some precious content emerging that can be highly rewarding to so many leaders. Actively building more productive habits is proven to boost your own personal performance and at the same time increase your sense of meaning as well.

I would be happy to share what I have learnt so far from these lectures. So please feel free to contact me, if you feel these insights could be to your personal benefit. Meanwhile let me start by sharing a small insight that seems so logical and yet still is frequently outside of our conscious awareness and daily effectiveness. The first part of this insight is that by actively integrating our character strengths in numerous different ways in our day to day activities we will directly boost our sense of Well Being and significantly improve our productivity and sense of purpose (Lavy & Littman-Ovadia, 2017). An attainable short-term gain, available to us whenever we are ready. Prof. Santos reveals how to get hold of our character strengths and subsequently also displays various ways to put these strengths into action. The second insight related to this is that based on research from (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) the best moments in life usually occur if a person’s body & mind are stretched to their limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Stretching our goals, implementing these challenges and optimal use of your skills in our day to day routine again have a positive effect that we are frequently insufficiently integrating yet. Let me invite you to improve your personal productivity and well-being as well as improving employee engagement and creating the right environment for your employees.

Lavy & Littman-Ovadia (2017). My better self: Using strengths at work and work productivity, organizational citizenship behavior, and satisfaction. Journal of Career Development, 44(2) 95-109).

Csikszentmihalyi (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

LeFevre, J. (1988). Flow and the quality of experience during work and leisure. In M. Csikszentmihalyi & I. S. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Optimal experience: Psychological studies of flow in consciousness (p. 307–318). Cambridge University Press.