Lifestorming, page 6
End of digression.
To progress from rejection of change to positive acceptance of change to deliberate creation of change is a healthy evolutionary journey. We lack the basis and precedent of long-term relationships in most of our situational relationships, but we can nevertheless apply healthy beliefs that create positive attitudes, which manifest in effective behavior.
Don't assume the boss is an ill-tempered, tone-deaf tyrant. Don't assume that every misfortune—including airplane delays due to weather—are sleights aimed specifically at you by perverse gods. Stop thinking you're misunderstood. Instead, talk to the boss about your issues or his or her communications, create alternative travel arrangements as your plan B in advance, go to lengths to make yourself understood, and then test to see if you were.
Here's a quick lesson about empowerment: It does you no good to argue with anyone who hasn't the capacity (authority, resources, and skills) to help you. Screaming at the client service phone agent because your package hasn't been delivered doesn't do anything except decrease the likelihood that the person being screamed at will help you to any extent at all. You need to find a level of management with the authority to help and then provide the manager with the incentive to help. When my baggage fails to arrive on occasion (I—Alan—have nearly 4 million air miles), I don't scream at the baggage agent in the tiny airport office. I say, “I know you deal with this all day long, so what can I do to best help you find my lost luggage?”
Case Study
I (Marshall) also travel a lot. Every time I hear the announcement that the plane will be late, I remember a picture in my library—a picture of me on a volunteer trip to Africa with the Red Cross when I was about 30 years old. The picture shows me with many starving children. Their arms are being measured. If their arms are too big they do not eat. If their arms are too small they don't eat. Their arms have to be just the right size—meaning they are not so hungry they won't survive and not so well fed as not to need food—to eat that day.
This was an eye-opening experience for me that I never want to forget. It reminds me how fortunate I am. When I feel “justifiably” upset, I remember that photo and those beautiful children. I repeat this mantra over and over in my mind: “Never complain because the airplane is late. There are people in the world who have real problems. They have problems you cannot even begin to imagine. You are a very lucky man. Never complain because the airplane is late.” Next time that you board an airplane, and you hear the announcement that the airplane is going to be late, say to yourself, “I am such a lucky person.”
Conversely, organizations that are on top of their game empower people at lower levels to help people, obviating the need to involve layers of management, which is redundant and actually expensive failure work. If front-line people have the authority to help customers who behave appropriately so as to merit their help, then we have highly effective resolutions.
Here's a key technique: When someone justifiably complains to you about something, merely ask, “What would make you happy?” Inevitably, they will ask for less than you would have provided on your own! (This is why Ritz-Carlton wisely—or at parent Marriott's wise insistence—changed its policy of providing virtually all employees with the authority to spend up to $2,500 on a guest complaint. Employees were offering more than they had to—say, a free night—when a simple free drink or just an apology would have sufficed.)
Our belief system needn't be that every discomfited customer or client is outraged, or that they want the moon and the stars to assuage their grievances. I've had drinks spilled on me on an airplane, and I forgave the passenger or flight attendant who did it. I didn't assume that they were sloppy or incompetent, because I know it was simply an accident.
Stuff happens. We need to deal with it in real time.
Aspiration-Appropriate Behavior
Our aspirations shouldn't be static. They are a moving target, not something to be accomplished and done with. As we move through our evolutionary journey, our aspirations change. We no longer seek to be in the major leagues, but to be an All-Star; to move from charitable giving to starting a philanthropy; from taking yearly vacations to traveling the world; from being a valued employee to starting our own business.
The options that pertain to most of us look like this:
Discretionary and deliberate change.
Change is acceptable.
Change is resisted.
At the lowest level, we've feathered a nest and don't want to budge. Change is threatening, so we resist external influences. While it's understandable that some people want to hang onto what they have, this position doesn't help them in the long run. In business, and in organizational culture more broadly, change is a constant—especially now, at a time when disruption and volatility are rapidly becoming the new normal.
Case Study
Imagine living a life in which nothing changed. I (Marshall) think it's great to keep some things the same all your life: your spouse, even a job or the community where you live. But if we live completely changeless lives, we miss out—especially if we hang onto poor habits, grudges, personal inertia, or something else that hurts others and ourselves. This amounts in the end to choosing misery.
So, if there is one thing I'd ask of you right now, it's to think about one change, one gesture that you won't regret later on. That's the only criterion: You won't feel sorry you did it! Maybe it's calling your mother to tell her that you love her. Or thanking a customer for his loyalty. Or, instead of saying something cynical in a meeting, saying nothing.
It could be anything, as long as it represents a departure from what you've always done and would continue to do forever if you hadn't read these words.
Now do it.
It will be good for your friends. It will be good for your company. It will be good for your customers. It will be good for your family.
And it will be even better for you. So much better that you might even want to do it again.
We can't merely expect to retrain and reskill. We need to change our beliefs about accepting change. That leads us to level two.
Here, we are receptive to change. The key to success here is an A+ attitude:
Accept: Accept the change without resistance or argument, so long as it doesn't threaten your ability to perform and succeed. (It usually doesn't.) Understand what's required and make intelligent, rational decisions, whether it's relocation, more schooling, different work, or changed relationships.
Adjust: Make the required changes in your habits and activities. Once you accept that the change can be in your self-interest, adjust your attitudes to allow for more flexibility, different options, and new conditions.
Adapt: Now your behaviors can change appropriately. Make new friends, end unhelpful relationships, choose different working habits, and spend your time in different ways. Become innovative in making the change work for you (the combination of internal and external control).
Once we've accepted that change happens, we can begin to think about how to bring about the changes we want. Thus, level three is about initiating change and exerting more internal control.
If our aspirations don't stop with a certain job title or mountaintop, then how are they created and managed during our journey? A caterpillar receives a biochemical indicator, or senses a weather change, or has an internal clock that informs it when to spin the cocoon. We have no such automated systems. We need to create our own triggers toward metamorphosis on our journey.
There is no best time to do this. But we do have to grapple with the disinclination to do it, the procrastination impulse, the feathered nest syndrome. We hear bromides such as “Don't undertake too much change at once,” or “Stabilize your life before you consider more changes.”
Ironically, a gyroscope remains upright only so long as it continues to spin.
We aren't in a snapshot; we're part of a film. We deal with what is today, knowing that it shouldn't necessarily be what is tomorrow. When we talk about aspiration-appropriate behavior, we mean adjusting behavior to deal with the moving target of enhanced aspirations. And that means adjusting our belief systems to support those newly desirable behaviors.
Write a belief you've had for quite some time and haven't changed and don't intend to change.
Now write a belief you once held and one that has replaced it.
Finally, project a new belief you might hold in the future.
For me, the first might have been:
I believe in freedom of the press and that the press should be objective and nonbiased.
For the second:
I once believed that a corporate job was best, and that you worked hard and that talent was recognized and promoted, but now I believe that I'm better off working for myself.
And for the third:
I well might come to believe that the current, two-party system needs to change to allow for more diverse candidates and opinions.
You can see how our beliefs are sometimes constant, sometimes altered, and sometimes enhanced by new ones. We've found that one of the most important elements in this journey is allowing ourselves permission.
In position one, in the lower left of Figure 3.2, you assume you never have permission. You don't cross against the light even when you can see there's no traffic for a mile. You don't contradict a buyer, no matter how egregious the error. You would never ask a desk clerk for an upgrade, or duck under the endless ropes to make quicker progress toward the entrance. You never push back. You do not, ever, break from precedent. You have no editor, only a go/no go choice, which is usually shut down.
Figure 3.2 The Permission Gauge
In position two, in the upper left, you formally ask. You ask your partner if it's okay to write a check for something from your joint account. You ask a client if you can talk to people as you travel through the site. You raise your hand and never just ask your question. You wait to see if someone else does what you want to do first, as a precedent. You constantly ask others to approve your approach, proposal, article, and breakfast choice. You ask others to edit your work.
In position three, in the upper right, you formally grant yourself permission. You review the situation and affirm for yourself that it's okay to knock and enter the room. You say to yourself, “Well, they wouldn't have offered if they didn't want me to use it.” You compare your work to others to ensure that you're on the right track. You justify and validate internally why it's okay to proceed. You might not break new ground, but you take advantage of ground already broken by others. You self-edit.
In position four, in the lower right, you simply assume permission. With the right ethical bearing, you don't commit antisocial behavior, such as cutting a line, but you go to the elite members' hotel lounge and assume you're entitled to because you have a large suite. You tell your client when, based on your criteria, there's been a bad decision. You ask a question without asking to be acknowledged first. You realize that some rules and even laws are situational and you use good judgment to guide your behaviors. You have neither an external nor an internal editor.
You may have realized that, as you go around the dial, you move through unconscious incompetency, conscious incompetency, conscious competency, and unconscious competency.
We think that the ideal setting for most people is between positions three and four. Based on three decades of working with all kinds of people across many industries, we know how common it is to operate between two and three.
The healthiest people, and those most in control of their journey, operate between positions three and four, on the right of Figure 3.2. They know at times they do require permission (I can't steal my sister's car) and at times they can simply act (She's away at school and the car needs to be driven).
Our behavioral metamorphoses—plural—take place purposefully over time. Let's now take a look at what determines the actual nature of our behaviors—our belief system.
Notes
1. “Big Dig,” Wikipedia, last modified February 4, 2017, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig.
2. C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law or the Pursuit of Progress (London: John Murray Publishers, 1958).
3. Stephen Jay Gould, Punctuated Equilibrium (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).
4. Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan, “Leadership Is a Contact Sport,” Strategy + Business 36 (August 25, 2004) (originally published by Booz & Company), www.strategy-business.com/article/04307?gko=a260c.
4
Believe It or Not
Breaking into the Belief Vault
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” This immortal sentence from the Declaration of Independence is worth examining for a lot of reasons—notably, what exactly makes a truth self-evident? What can we be sure is true, and what should we question? Especially as we age, it's easy for beliefs to become so calcified in our unconscious that we never revisit them, never question them, and never change them. In this chapter, we'll talk about why it's a good idea to shake up our beliefs from time to time.
One example is self-promotion. Many people have a phobia about it, especially women, who are more likely to be self-critical than men. (I run a very popular workshop called Shameless Self-Promotion.) Our false belief is that humility is a sterling trait under any and all conditions. That's ludicrous. No one searches for a tentative brain surgeon, a modest litigator, a self-disparaging consultant. People clearly recognize that excellence requires pride (not arrogance) and comfort in speaking about one's achievements. There's a belief that might be stated as, “Good work should speak for itself.” Maybe, but not usually. When credit is due, if you don't claim it, someone else will. All outstanding consultants know that the sequence for assigning credit can easily look like this:
Joan was instrumental in improving profitability.
Joan was of significant help.
Joan was highly supportive.
I don't think we needed Joan to do this.
Who's Joan?
This isn't a question of bragging or selfishness, but one of recognizing what you've accomplished.
Case Study
A consultant to a small law firm's managing partners told me he felt like a fraud because he himself had never managed a small law firm, though he was an attorney.
Upon questioning in front of 30 people, I established that: He had written more books on small law firm management than anyone in history; was cited in law newsletters for his expertise; had consulted with scores of such firms and had glowing testimonials; was interviewed by the media about the field; and was offered contracts by various legal outlets to use his intellectual property.
I told him there was no one alive more qualified than he was to consult with such clients. He had just refused to review his own incorrect belief system that you had to have done something to be able to give advice about it.
It seems to me that most of the life coaches we come across often do great work and help their clients substantially with issues that have been previously unresolvable. Yet most of these coaches don't make all that much money. They dislike self-promotion and depend on unsolicited referrals and people finding them. These talented coaches should learn to get recognized for the value they add.
I (Marshall) often explain it this way: If you came across a terrific product—say, a great car, an amazing TV series, or a sponge that never smelled like mildew—wouldn't you tell people about it? We've all found great products and evangelized about their merits to anyone who would listen. Because we didn't make them, we never feel self-conscious singing their praises. Now imagine you are the maker of those great products. You'd absolutely put the word out about how wonderful they are—while at the same time being accurate and avoiding any ridiculous hyperbole. The same goes for anything we're genuinely good at. If you tell people about it, you are giving them helpful information. There's no reason to be shy about that.
Milepost
You can't help others fully unless you're helping yourself first, which is why airlines tell you to put the oxygen mask on first before attempting to help others.
Let's create some definitions:
Confidence: The honest-to-God belief that you can help other people while also learning yourself.
Arrogance: The honest-to-God belief that you can help other people but have nothing left to learn yourself.
Smugness: Arrogance without the talent.
Brand: How someone thinks about you when you're not around. (Without a brand, they're not thinking of you!)
Here is what is really egotistical, however: The belief that one's work is so outstanding that there is no need to promote it! When you think of that belief not as humility but as a ridiculous expectation, you realize that it takes a lot of ego. That's a belief that is ingrained and unexamined. It's doubtful many people overtly say, “I'm so good that I can expect to just sit by the phone.” Yet that's the unarticulated operating belief for many. Even the people with the strongest brands around don't make that arrogant assumption and continue to promote themselves.
A belief in positive self-promotion can actually be helpful in professional settings—when it prompts us to realize that we are always selling our ideas. Not only that, it is our responsibility to sell them, not others' responsibility to buy. I (Marshall) often share an idea that comes from the great management thinker Peter Drucker: Every decision is made by the person who has the power to make the decision—not necessarily the smartest person, or the one who is right. Once we make peace with that, and begin to focus on making a positive difference, we begin to have real influence. As Drucker said, “The great majority of people tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors ‘owe’ them and should do for them. And they are conscious above all of the authority they ‘should have.’ As a result they render themselves ineffectual.”1
