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What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful Hardcover – January 9, 2007
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The corporate world is filled with executives, men and women who have worked hard for years to reach the upper levels of management. They’re intelligent, skilled, and even charismatic. But only a handful of them will ever reach the pinnacle -- and as executive coach Marshall Goldsmith shows in this book, subtle nuances make all the difference. These are small "transactional flaws" performed by one person against another (as simple as not saying thank you enough), which lead to negative perceptions that can hold any executive back. Using Goldsmith’s straightforward, jargon-free advice, it’s amazingly easy behavior to change.
Executives who hire Goldsmith for one-on-one coaching pay $250,000 for the privilege. With this book, his help is available for 1/10,000th of the price.
- Print length256 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHachette Books
- Publication dateJanuary 9, 2007
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions6.38 x 0.88 x 9.5 inches
- ISBN-109781401301309
- ISBN-13978-1401301309
- Lexile measure950L
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"One of the keys to a good business book can be found in the Table of Contents. This book is not different. The four sections are titled: The Trouble with Success; The Twenty Habits That Hold You Back from the Top; How We Can Change for the Better; Pulling Out the Stops. If you go into a bookstore to check this book out, just look at the twenty habits. They were a scary eye opener for yours truly. I used up one hi-lighter on this book and found way more bad habits I have and need to change than I care to admit. The nice thing about this book is that you can identify the flaws you didn't think you had and fix them without anybody knowing you had a problem. Now that is a huge benefit. All in all, this is an important book." -- Jack Covert, Jack Covert Selects, 1800CEOREAD
"Goldsmith has no interest in probing why people behave the way they do. He doesn't try to reshape their personalities. He measures success by the extent to which other people's perceptions of his clients change for the better . . . he teaches them how to apologize for their shortcomings -- 'the most magical, healing, restorative gesture human beings can make,' he writes in his book [What Got You Here Won't Get You There] . . . and then to ask for help in getting better . . . 'It's much harder to change people's perceptions of your behavior than to change your behavior,' he says . . ." -- Barbara Rose, Chicago Tribune
"If you decide to purchase one new book this year I encourage you to make it What Got You Here Won't Get You There. This is the top tier of leadership information available!" -- weLEAD Rating - highly recommended
"The book is written pretty much the way Marshall speaks. It is simple, brutally honest, and humorous. It doesn't try to get fancy. It's economically composed, crafted to be useful. It will appeal to people with no time to waste. Like its author, it's practical and to the point . . . What Got You Here will be required reading for many years to come. -- David Zweig, Senior Editor, World Business Academy Perspectives
"This is a superb book, practical with a rich understanding of human behaviour and how to change. Mr. Goldsmith has endless examples from his work and his own personal failings, and the result is a chance for readers whose companies don't hire him to get the benefit of his expertise." -- Harvey Schachter, Globe and Mail
"What holds you back from achievement? Marshall Goldsmith is an executive coach who has worked with over eighty CEOs in the world's top organizations -- so he's in the perfect position to examine how global leaders overcome self-defeating habits, translating these lessons to the modern condition and everyday man in What Got You Here Won't Get You There. From key beliefs in successful leaders to common behavior flaws, this book translates drawbacks to success, and will find an audience in any general-interest collection where self-improvement is of interest." -- Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review/California Bookwatch
"You'll see the results whether you're a CEO or just getting started." -- BookPage
To Marshall Goldsmith: Thank You for Writing This Book (And We're Not Sucking Up):
Marshall Goldsmith is one of the most successful of corporate America's celebrity coaches -- he typically makes upwards of a quarter-million dollars for a year or so of work with each individual client -- and is also one of the best. ... The beauty of Goldsmith's approach lies not just in the simplicity of his insights, but also in the clarity of his advice. ... Goldsmith has written a leadership manual that could double as a guide to good parenting and marital peace. -- Knowledge@Wharton
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 1401301304
- Publisher : Hachette Books; Revised ed. edition (January 9, 2007)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9781401301309
- ISBN-13 : 978-1401301309
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Lexile measure : 950L
- Item Weight : 1.02 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.38 x 0.88 x 9.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #14,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #94 in Job Hunting & Career Guides
- #223 in Business Management (Books)
- #449 in Success Self-Help
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Dr. Goldsmith is a new member of the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame. He is the only two-time Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker in the World. He has been ranked as the World’s #1 Executive Coach and Top Ten Business Thinker for eight years. Marshall was chosen as the inaugural winner of the Lifetime Award for Leadership by the Harvard Institute of Coaching.
Dr. Goldsmith is the author or editor of 41 books, which have sold over 2.5 million copies, been translated into 32 languages and become listed bestsellers in 12 countries. Amazon.com recently recognized their ‘100 Best Leadership & Success Books’. His books, Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, were both recognized as being in the top 100 books ever written in their field. Marshall is one of only two authors with two books on the list. His recent book, How Women Rise, with lead author, Sally Helgesen, is a BookScan #1 book for Women.
Marshall’s other professional acknowledgments include: Global Gurus - the inaugural Corps D ’Elite Award for Lifetime Contribution in Leadership and Coaching, Harvard Business Review - World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Institute for Management Studies - Lifetime Achievement Award for Leadership Education, American Management Association - 50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years and BusinessWeek - 50 great leaders in America.
Dr. Goldsmith served as a Professor of Management Practice at the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business. His Ph.D. is from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management - where he was the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year. His MBA is from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business - where he was the Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year. He is one of a select few executive advisors who has worked with over 200 major CEOs and their management teams. He served on the Advisory Board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for ten years. He has been a volunteer teacher for US Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives, and leaders of the International and American Red Cross – where he was a National Volunteer of the Year.
Dr. Goldsmith has over 1.3 million followers on LinkedIn. His YouTube videos have over 3 million views. Hundreds of his articles, interviews, columns, and videos are available online at www.MarshallGoldsmith.com for viewing and sharing. Visitors have viewed, read, listened to, downloaded, or shared his resources tens of millions of times
To reach Marshall:
Marshall@MarshallGoldsmith.com • www.MarshallGoldsmith.com
Phone: (858) 759-0950 • Fax: (858) 759-0550
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Goldsmith coaches people to make simple changes. These simple changes are difficult to make.
His message is delivered simple and straight. It is a difficult read because you recognise yourself in the examples of undesirable behaviours. Goldsmith cuts through the clutter with the simple advice that we all do all of these things from time to time; we only need to fix the behaviours that are holding us back.
As Goldsmith only deals with successful people he is working to fine-tune an already high performance. This is not a `self-help 1.01' book. It is for people who have become successful while exhibiting certain behaviours but who are now held back by those behaviours. It is hard to change behaviours that are associated with success. This book is not about a quick fix. It is about a long and consistent process that, if followed, will help to build new habits.
Board members struggle to gain entry to the coterie of successful directors. Choosing the right habits to build could accelerate acceptance. Choosing the wrong ones could leave you as you are; only more frustrated. The process relies on external feedback and validation to select the behaviours that need changing. This is daunting for board members given the confidential nature of boardrooms and the team-based nature of the role. Having a third party gather the feedback and qualify the participants to provide feedback makes this easier. If you don't have a professional coach to help you extract the value from this book you will need a trustworthy friend who understands boards and boardroom dynamics.
The book is a call to action. It is especially relevant for aspiring directors or those at the start of their career. It is also great for those sudden changes in board careers such as taking on a committee chairmanship or moving into a different sector. When you are new you need to be more adept at the behavioural skills to compensate for your lack of track record.
It would be exciting to apply this long process to the board performance review to build a lasting improvement in the quality of board interactions.
This is a worthwhile book; it is good but not easy.
* Julie Garland McLellan is a professional non-executive director, board and governance consultant and mentor. She is the author of "The Director's Dilemma", "All Above Board: Great Governance for the Government Sector" and numerous articles on corporate strategy and governance.
Goldsmith writes in a clear and conversational tone. I had the advantage of having heard his voice and so could "hear him speaking" in my head as I read through his material. From the beginning, he sets a no-nonsense tone about what it takes to evaluate where you are and what you need to do to "get there" - a presumably better place. Goldsmith relies heavily on 360 degree feedback from colleagues and direct reports when he is working with an executive. He encourages his readers to do the same and provides tools in the appendices to help in that regard.
The book is logically organized and hits all the leadership growth hot buttons: The trouble with success, The 20 habits that hold you back from the top, How we can change for the better and Pulling out the stops. And not to let things get too predictable, the 20 habits turn into 21 and the 21st habit that holds you back from the top is "Goal Obsession."
The short list for "how we can change for the better," is: Feedback, apologizing, telling the world of your discoveries, listening, thanking, following up and practicing feedforward (seeking ideas on how to improve the skill you pick to improve; such as asking a colleague for two ideas on "how I can become a better listener."
Besides being concise, well organized, and to the point, Goldsmith regales us with wonderful stories from his many years of coaching experience. It seems that there are at least a couple of "nuggets" in each chapter. For example, from the section on "Be Your Own Press Secretary," there is this statement: "If there's one thing we've learned in this noisy media age, it's that simple, un-nuanced messages break through the clutter and hit home with high impact. (I'm not saying that's always a good thing, but it's a fact of life. Deal with it." Another gem I enjoyed was; "As a friend wisely noted, `Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.' " And on Feedback, Goldsmith had this to say, "It's not hard to see why people don't want to hear negative feedback. Successful people are incredibly delusional about their achievements. Over 95 percent of the members in most successful groups believe that they perform in the top half of their group."
This is a must read for any leader who is serious about advancing his or her own career and coaching others along that path. Get it, read it, do it.
Top reviews from other countries
The core of the book is 20 things that you shouldn't do, such as (paraphrasing):
- don't put down others too much to make yourself look good
- don't take over other people's ideas
- don't be too quick to judge others
- don't make destructive comments
- don't take the credit for others work (too much)
- don't suppress innovation with Nos and Buts
A lot of this comes down to treat your colleagues with respect and positivity.
Buy it; you need this book!
I was recently hit from two directions by the same person. They said, "You're the one person that stands out in my mind as someone who's never seemed to reach their full potential." And secondly, "You are actually the worse listener I've ever met. You are dreadful!" Ouch!
I found those comments motivational and started to work on changing through using this book. The book is analysis and workshop methods you need. The methods are in the book are not always obvious and certainly not easy fix-ups. But I think having to work at finding the what's and how's better than just being given the routemap.
I'd bet everyone has weak areas in their empathy with others and this book will tell you how to self diagnose and then how to start fixing the problems. You might find this book much more interesting (or horrifying) than you thought it would be. I started using the techniques with my wife - now that was interesting...
Once you are on the recovery route try "Just Listen" Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
And if I did I would be lying. This book is powerful, and makes the strong case for 360 feedback- we all have our blind spots, and sometimes it is worth knowing what they are. Goldsmith knows his quarry, and our common flaws, very well.
This book makes the good point that most successful people get where they are on a mixture of ability and spin, and that may take them a long way up the corporate or professional ladder. Classically Western education has been about learning a subject, not about learning to understand yourself and your motivations. What the author adds is an appreciation that all virtues are shadowed by the vices of their excess and their lack. He shows how using 360 feedback on the basis that you don't know how you come across unless you've asked your co-workers and significant customers can help people develop further, increase their insight and their contribution to their work. The workers he assesses may well end up enjoying their work more, and getting promotions.
This book is well written, and it is on the great old theme of how we come to know ourselves accurately.
I think it would help most people in business and in professions to progress further, and even better to do this with their own and their colleagues sanity and respect intact.













