People who have read my book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" often tell me they found themselves several times in the book!

What habits could you stop that are holding you back from getting to the top?

Look at the list below to find the 20 habits I often find in successful people. I help successful leaders become even more successful by helping them stop these habits:

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 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 you 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.

Source: © by Marshall Goldsmith, with Mark Reiter, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There", pp. 40-41 Hyperion Books. Available from Amazon.com.

Life is good.

Marshall

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com

http://www.MarshallGoldsmithFeedForward.com

Marshall Goldsmith's 24 books include "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. His latest book "Succession: Are You Ready?" - is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series.

Marshall Goldsmith Effective Leadership Video Training

UPCOMING EVENTS:

June 16, 2009 in Chicago - Linkage: What Got You Here Won't Get You There one day program

June 30, 2009 in Edinburgh - IMS full day program

Hiring the right people is not as simple as it sounds! Millions of managers ask themselves this same question every day. I asked my friends Geoff Smart and Randy Street (HBS '97), co-authors of the instant New York Times bestseller Who: The A Method for Hiring, if they would answer this question. Following is their answer.

GS & RS: It's hard to hire the right person because managers use "voodoo hiring" methods that don't work. Unsuccessful hiring is every manager's #1 problem. They don't teach you how to hire in high school, college, or even at Harvard Business School!

Hiring managers who invent their own approaches, most of which are horrible, not only waste time, but also produce a 50% failure rate on average. And, in tough economic times like these, getting your business's house in order from a talent perspective is of paramount importance if you are going to weather the storm.

We conducted the largest research ever done to solve this problem of unsuccessful hiring. We distilled 13 years of consulting insights across hundreds of companies, performed exclusive interviews with over 20 billionaires and 60 other CEOs and investors to collect their best advice and stories on this topic, and completed a university-sponsored scientific study of 313 CEO careers.

What did we learn? We learned 7 things that managers can do today to improve their hiring success rate from 50% to 90%. We call this the "A Method For Hiring."

1. Write a written "scorecard" with quantifiable outcomes you expect a person to deliver. It's time to be precise -- not fuzzy.
2. Identify what elements of your culture you must have in candidates.
3. Source the best candidates using your network and think twice before over-relying on ads, job boards, and recruiters.
4. Consider paying a much bigger referral bounty to your employees who source A Players who are hired. One high performing company, for example, pays its employees a $100,000 hiring bounty for people who are hired (paid out $10k per year for 10 years of start date if both the referring party and the referred party are still employed).
5. Select the right person by conducting at least one extremely thorough, 3-hour, chronological interview. Really dig in. Find out for each job the person has had: 
   • What was the person hired to do?
   • What were his or her biggest accomplishments?
   • What were his or her mistakes?
   • What would his or her bosses say about them (which can be verified with reference checks).
   • Why did he or she leave?
6. Watch out for red flags like: candidates who don't take responsibility for past mistakes, or who speak poorly of most of their bosses. Watch out for the 20 behavioral derailers that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
7. Sell candidates by remembering the 5 Fs of what candidates care about:
   • Fit (with your company)
   • Family (support for joining your company)
   • Freedom (to make decisions)
   • Fortune (and glory)
   • Fun

You can do it. Master the A Method for Hiring. Enjoy more career success. Make more money. Have more time.

MG: Thanks Geoff and Randy! This is great advice. To learn more about the A Method for Hiring, go to www.whothebook.com or email Randy Street.

Marshall Goldsmith's 24 books include "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. His latest book "Succession: Are You Ready?" - is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series.

Marshall Goldsmith Effective Leadership Video Training

When times are tough, becoming a new leader or CEO from outside the organization is both a blessing and a curse. 
 
The good news is that the world's not going to immediately blame you for the company's problems. The recession has lowered performance expectations. And the board has confidence in you.

The bad news is that the company does have serious problems you need to fix. And the economy may get worse before it gets better, inhibiting your chances for an effective turnaround.

So what are some of my suggestions for a new CEO entering into a difficult situation?

My first: Don't trash your predecessor. Whatever happened in the past happened. You cannot change that. Your predecessor probably had good relationships with many of the executives who are still in the company and are running key divisions and key functions. Do whatever you can to learn from your predecessor. Although a few CEOs are asked to leave because they engage in immoral or illegal activities, most are asked to leave because they just make mistakes. Your predecessor probably did many things right. Your predecessor knows – perhaps more than anyone – the key relationships that you will need to develop in order to be a success. Go out of your way to build a positive transition.

For instance, I have a colleague who has been working with the Obama team on the transition from President Bush to President Obama. He has been pleasantly surprised at the level of help and cooperation offered by leaders in the outgoing administration. He has found them incredibly helpful in sharing the 'nuts and bolts' of running the government and found them to be grateful that they are being listened to and treated with respect.

My second suggestion is to respect the history and tradition of your organization. Consider my friend Frances Hesselbein, who won admiration from management gurus for her incredible turnaround at the Girl Scouts of the USA in the 1980s. In her thirteen years at the helm, she dramatically increased membership and raised significantly more money. She also focused on the importance of diversity and made an organization that was becoming irrelevant – relevant again. While she worked very hard at creating a vibrant organization that met the needs of changing times, she always respected the history and traditions that had made the Girl Scouts a great organization in the past. (Ms. Hesselbein and I are on the Leader to Leader Institute board of governors, of which Ms. Hesselbein is the chairman.)

My third suggestion is write off whatever you can – now! As an incoming CEO in a tough situation, you need a brutally honest assessment of the problems faced by your company. Turn over every rock! Let your executives know that they will not be punished for disclosing concerns now – but that they will be fired if you find out later that they did not tell you the truth about what is really happening.

One of my favorite clients, who eventually succeeded in turning around a disaster, tried valiantly to implement this strategy. He thought that he was being clear with all division presidents. By year's end the company had written off over $1 billion, which was by far the largest write-off in the history of the firm. As it turned out, one key division president, who was near retirement, had "fudged the numbers" in an effort to look good in his last year. When this mistake came to light, the company had to write off another $200 million the next year. The CEO told me that the $200 million write-off that occurred the second year did more damage to the reputation and stock price of the company than the billion-plus write-off that had occurred the first year.

My final suggestion: Be a role model for humility and continuous learning. Kent Kresa, who in the 1990s led an amazing turnaround at defense-contractor Northrop (now Northrop Grumman), developed a profile for the desired behaviors of the leaders in the company. He personally received feedback on his own leadership behavior. Kent worked hard at improving himself and set the example for all of his executives – who also did the same thing. If you want others to develop – start with yourself! The positive role modeling by Kent and his executive team did more to encourage other leaders to focus on their own improvement than any amount of 'preaching' or courses on leadership.

Ultimately for a company to change, individual leaders need to change. By being a positive example of learning, agility and personal development, you can inspire your leadership team to do the same. (I worked with Northrop and Mr. Kresa as consultant in the early 1990s, helping them with a large executive education effort.)

If you are a new leader in a tough situation, I cannot guarantee that following these suggestions will ensure your success. But I do believe that following these suggestions will improve your odds in turning around a tough situation.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's 24 books include "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" - a New York Times best-seller, Wall Street Journal #1 business book and Harold Longman Award winner for Business Book of the Year. His latest book "Succession: Are You Ready?" - is the newest edition to the Harvard Business 'Memo to the CEO' series.