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Becoming the Person You Want to BeSimple Ain’t Easy!Dear Followers: I'm excited that my new book Triggers is finally published! Order it now at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com! Life Is Good. -- Marshall
Meaningful behavioral change is hard to do. If it were easy, everyone would do it!
by Marshall Goldsmith
As an executive coach, I’ve been helping successful people achieve positive lasting change in behavior for more than thirty-five years. Most of my clients embrace the opportunity to change, and most are aware of the fact that behavioral change will help them become more effective leaders, partners, and even family members. A few are not.
My process of helping clients is straightforward and consistent. I interview and listen to my clients’ key stakeholders. These stakeholders could be their colleagues, direct reports, or board members. I accumulate a lot of confidential feedback. Then I go over the summary of this feedback with my clients. My clients take ultimate responsibility for the behavioral changes that they want to make. My job is then very simple. I help my clients achieve positive, lasting change in the behavior that they choose as judged by key stakeholders that they choose. If my clients succeed in achieving this positive change—as judged by their stakeholders—I get paid. If the key stakeholders do not see positive change, I don’t get paid. Our odds of success improve because I’m with the client every step of the way, telling him or her how to stay on track and not regress to a former self. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of one extremely significant fact: Meaningful behavioral change is hard to do. It’s hard to initiate behavioral change, even harder to stay the course, hardest of all to make the change stick. If you think I’m overstating its difficulty answer these questions:
These three questions conform to the three problems we face in introducing change into our lives. We can’t admit that we need to change—either because we’re unaware that a change is desirable, or, more likely, we’re aware but have reasoned our way into elaborate excuses that deny our need for change. In the following pages, we’ll examine—and dispense with—the deep-seated beliefs that trigger our resistance to change. We do not appreciate inertia’s power over us. Given the choice, we prefer to do nothing—which is why I suspect our answers to “How long has this been going on?” are couched in terms of years rather than days. Inertia is the reason we never start the process of change. It takes extraordinary effort to stop doing something in our comfort zone (because it’s painless or familiar or mildly pleasurable) in order to start something difficult that will be good for us in the long run. We don’t know how to execute a change. There’s a difference between motivation and understanding and ability. For example, we may be motivated to lose weight but we lack the nutritional understanding and cooking ability to design and stick with an effective diet. Or we have understanding and ability but lack the motivation. Our behavior is shaped, both positively and negatively, by our environment—and a keen appreciation of our environment can dramatically lift not only our motivation, ability, and understanding of the change process, but also our confidence that we can actually do it. What makes positive, lasting behavioral change so challenging—and causes most of us to give up early in the game—is that we have to do it in our imperfect world, full of triggers that may pull and push us off course. Achieving meaningful and lasting change may be simple—simpler than we imagine. But simple is far from easy. I hope that you enjoy this next series of videos and written blogs, which are all about how to overcome triggers and become the person you want to be! In November 2015 Dr. Marshall Goldsmith was recognized as the #1 Leadership Thinker in the World and the top 5 Management Thinker at the Thinkers50 Award Ceremony in London. He was also selected as the #1 Executive Coach in the World by GlobalGurus.org, and one of the 10 Most Influential Management Thinkers in the World by Thinkers50 in both 2011 and 2013. In 2011 he was chosen as the World's Most Influential Leadership Thinker. Marshall was the highest rated executive coach on the Thinkers50 List in both 2011 and 2013. What Got You Here Won't Get You There was listed as a top ten business bestseller for 2013 by INC Magazine / 800 CEO Read (for the seventh consecutive year). Marshall's exciting new research on engagement is published in his newest book Triggers (Crown, 2015). Please order Triggers at Amazon or Barnes & Noble!
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