What Got You Here Won't Get You There

Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith argues that the very habits and attitudes that make people successful can prevent them from becoming even more successful. In many cases, successful people advance not because of certain interpersonal flaws but in spite of them, and they fail to recognize the difference.

Goldsmith opens with three illustrative cases from his coaching practice. Carlos, a CEO, habitually verbalizes every thought without realizing that his offhand comments are interpreted as direct orders. Sharon, a magazine editor, rewards loyalty from a favored inner circle while alienating staffers outside it. Martin, a financial consultant, loses a major prospective client by spending an entire meeting talking about his own track record instead of asking the client what he wants. Each person is successful yet blind to how their behavior affects those around them. Goldsmith positions these cases as representative of a widespread problem: Successful people lose their internal compass for how they come across to others.

After describing how his coaching career began with a pay-for-results arrangement in the late 1980s, Goldsmith explains why successful people resist change. He identifies what he calls the "success delusion," a set of four beliefs that drive achievement but also create obstacles to improvement. The first belief, "I have succeeded," leads people to edit out failures, with 80 to 85 percent of successful professionals rating themselves in the top 20 percent of their peer group. The second, "I can succeed," reflects a strong sense of self-efficacy, the belief that one can influence outcomes through personal effort, which causes people to credit their own abilities rather than luck. The third, "I will succeed," produces excessive optimism and overcommitment. The fourth, "I choose to succeed," reflects a need for self-determination that, combined with cognitive dissonance (the discomfort of admitting that a freely chosen behavior may be wrong), makes people reluctant to change.

These beliefs, Goldsmith argues, make successful people superstitious. Drawing on psychologist B. F. Skinner's experiments showing that pigeons repeated random movements they associated with receiving food, he contends that successful people confuse correlation with causation. He distinguishes between "because of" behaviors, which genuinely contribute to success, and "in spite of" behaviors, which are dysfunctional habits people succeed despite. He illustrates this with Harry, a brilliant executive and poor listener who initially defended his refusal to hear people out as a way of filtering bad ideas. Goldsmith helped Harry see that he succeeded in spite of his poor listening, not because of it. Goldsmith adds that people will change only when doing so aligns with their own self-interest, whether the motivator is money, power, status, or a higher-level goal such as leaving a legacy.

The book's second section catalogs twenty interpersonal habits that hold successful people back. Goldsmith frames these not as flaws of skill, intelligence, or personality but as transactional behaviors performed by one person against others. He emphasizes that fixing them often requires stopping bad behavior rather than learning new skills, an act of omission he calls "shifting into neutral." The twenty habits include winning too much, adding too much value, passing judgment, making destructive comments, starting sentences with "no" or "but" or "however," telling the world how smart you are, speaking when angry, reflexive negativity, withholding information, failing to give recognition, claiming undeserved credit, making excuses, clinging to the past, playing favorites, refusing to express regret, not listening, failing to express gratitude, punishing the messenger, passing the buck, and an excessive need to be "me." Each habit is paired with anecdotes and practical remedies. For instance, Goldsmith cured his own habit of making destructive comments by paying his staff $10 every time they caught him doing it.

Goldsmith adds a twenty-first habit, goal obsession, which he treats as the root cause of many of the other twenty. Goal obsession is the force that leads people to pursue a specific objective at the expense of a larger mission. He illustrates this with Candace, a marketing executive whose drive to be a star led her to claim credit for her staff's work, causing high turnover, and with a 1973 Princeton study in which 90 percent of theology students rushing to deliver a sermon on the Good Samaritan stepped over a person in distress planted along their route.

The book's third section presents a seven-step method for changing interpersonal behavior. The first step is gathering feedback, ideally through confidential 360-degree reviews, a process in which input is collected from superiors, peers, and subordinates. Goldsmith asks each feedback provider to make four commitments: let go of the past, tell the truth, be supportive rather than cynical, and pick something to improve in themselves. This fourth commitment transforms the process from a one-way critique into a mutual effort at improvement.

The second step is apologizing. Goldsmith provides a simple formula: say "I'm sorry," add "I'll try to do better in the future," and then say nothing more. The third step is advertising the intention to change, which he compares to a political campaign requiring relentless repetition. The fourth step is listening, which he describes as a highly active process involving three disciplines: thinking before speaking, listening with respect, and asking "Is it worth it?" before responding. He argues that the ability to make another person feel like the most important person in the room separates the great from the near-great.

The fifth step is thanking, which Goldsmith positions as the default response to any suggestion. The sixth step is following up. His research across eight major corporations involving 86,000 participants revealed that follow-up is the single most important factor in whether people actually improve. Leaders who consistently followed up with colleagues were perceived as dramatically more effective; those who did not follow up showed no perceived change. The seventh step is feedforward, Goldsmith's signature methodology for soliciting future-oriented suggestions. The process requires picking one behavior to change, describing the objective to another person, asking for two suggestions for the future, and responding only with "Thank you." Because feedforward focuses on solutions rather than past mistakes, it avoids the defensiveness that traditional feedback often triggers.

The book's final section offers rules for implementing change and addresses special challenges for leaders. Goldsmith advises verifying that a problem is behavioral rather than technical, picking the single most significant flaw to address rather than trying to fix everything at once, and measuring results concretely. He warns leaders against the "Golden Rule Fallacy," the assumption that employees want to be treated the same way the boss likes to be treated. He illustrates this with Steve, a CEO and former debate champion who loved heated argument, not realizing that his subordinates experienced his debating style as an assertion that they were wrong. He also cautions against "checking the box," the belief that sending a memo or making an announcement constitutes effective communication.

Goldsmith closes by asking readers to imagine themselves at age 95 and consider what advice they would give their present selves. Citing interviews with people near the end of their lives and a research project involving more than 200 high-potential leaders from 120 companies, he reports that the answers consistently center on three themes: finding happiness now rather than deferring it, appreciating friends and family, and following one's dreams. The answers are never about money. The book ends with a restatement of its central message: "You are here. You can get there!"