What Got You Here, Will Get You There, Too

Here's What's Wrong With You

Ten years ago, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith released his best-selling book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There (2007). In it, he identified 20 “challenges in interpersonal behavior” that may sabotage future success. He clarifies that these are not flaws of skill, intelligence, or unchangeable personality. Boiled down, I would argue that the 20 behaviors are all rooted in issues of ego, insecurity, pride, and self-interest, many of which are simply issues of basic maturity.

We have all had (or have) our share of “challenges in interpersonal behavior.” Whatever yours may be, you got here (presuming here is a place you regard as a success), not because of them, but despite them. Focusing on negative attributes or characteristics is essentially a deficit-based approach to self-understanding. It leads with the question – or some variation of it – “What is wrong with you?” or “What’s missing?” Goldsmith spends the bulk of his book providing tips and techniques to overcome these challenges in personal behavior.

Leading with a deficit-oriented approach is not optimal. I am not suggesting that you ignore your weaknesses, that is neither smart nor beneficial. In fact, it behooves us all to know our respective challenges and do the necessary work of correcting any sabotaging behaviors so we are not sunk by them. A better and more fruitful approach would be an asset-based approach.

“What would happen if we studied what is right with people versus what is wrong with people?” –Donald O. Clifton

An asset-based approach leads with the question, “What is right with you?” It presumes you have inherent strengths, talents, and competence from which to draw to help you achieve growth and success. Research has shown that an asset-based approach to development yields strong positive returns on investment (e.g., increased sales, increased profits, lower turnover, higher engagement, and fewer safety incidents).

From Here… To There

Getting from here to there – from where you are to where you want to be – does not require a wholesale reinvention of yourself. You can best answer the question ‘How do I get there?’ by answering the prior question ‘How did I get here?’ By that I mean identifying the distinct, repeatable behaviors which contributed to your success up to this point. Getting from here to there requires three steps:

Self-awareness. Know your capabilities and limitations. Know your unique set of strengths and talents (your assets).
Have a clear vision of where there is.
Put those two things together – self-awareness and knowing where you want to go – and develop a strategy that intentionally leverages your innate resources toward future success.

Simple: Know who you are, know where you want to go, develop a strategy to get there.

Know Who You Are

Socrates is famously credited with saying, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” I couldn’t agree more. Critical self-reflection is necessary to personal development. Cultivating deeper self-awareness is about naming your internal capabilities so that you can leverage them as you move forward. Self-awareness requires that you – as you look forward – look back, look inward, and look outward.

Look back. Reflect on past life experiences. What do those experiences tell you about yourself? Many people seem to spend more time reflecting on failure than they do on success. What went wrong? What can I do better next time? But this is a deficit-based approach to analysis. Past success warrants as much reflection as past failure. What went right? What can be replicated for future success?

One of my favorite exercises is recalling “personal best” experiences where you briefly describe the context of the situation and list the ﬁve to seven most important actions or behaviors you took in this situation. In other words, what did you do that made a difference in this situation that could be repeated in future situations. I discovered this exercise in The Leadership Challenge (Kouzes & Posner, 2007), and, although it was developed in the context of leadership research, it can be used in other contexts and is not limited to leadership environments.

Look inward. A wide range of psychometric tools exist to offer insight to your personality, temperament, strengths, and more. Myers-Briggs (MBTI), StrengthsFinder, Keirsey Temperament Sorter, DiSC, Kolbe, Herrmann Brain Dominance Indicator (HBDI), etc., the list goes on. No single tool will capture all there is to know about yourself, but each tool offers a valuable “porthole” into your inner world and may provide you with new insights about yourself or give you new language to articulate what is true about you. You can take many of these assessments on your own, though I highly recommend processing your respective results with the help of a trained or certified professional. A solid interpretation will lead to a more accurate self-understanding. A more accurate self-understanding empowers you to build on your unique strengths and talents and offer to the world what only you can offer.

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” –unknown

There are other methods to gain deeper self-understanding, some light-hearted and fun and some deeper and emotionally intense. One method is listing and analyzing your favorite movies, music, books or speakers and looking for common themes. What are the subjects or key topics? What makes them meaningful/impactful for you? Another method is to create a timeline of your life and take a deep look at elements of your personal story, the good, the bad, and the ugly (e.g., family history; defining moments; major lessons, etc.). Look for recurring themes, for better or worse, or patterns of behavior.

These tools are mostly useful for understanding “why you do what you do” and “how you do what you do.” Before you can move forward with intentionality, you need to know the tools you already possess, for herein lie the keys to what got you here.

Look outward. What do others say about you? Look at past performance reviews (perhaps with the aid of a third party, to gauge how accurate the comments were) or 360˚ results. If you have more than one, look at them together to see if there are identifiable patterns of behavior. Ask a few friends, family, or colleagues for a candid assessment of your strongest qualities and characteristics. What words or phrases do others most commonly use to describe you? How do their responses align with what you discovered in looking inward and looking back? Again, you’re looking for patterns. Patterns are often more indicative of deep truths about you than one-off experiences.

Know Where There Is

Where is there for you? Where do you want to be? You can have more than one there. It may be a project at work. It may be a new business venture. It may be a personal challenge or a family goal. Whatever it is, you must be clear about what it is and know the factors that constitute success once it’s achieved. This is about vision; a picture of a preferred future.

Much has been written about the journey from here to there, or more accurately the challenges one faces trying to get from here to there (i.e., The Dip by Seth Godin). One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned regarding the journey from here to there I learned from a leadership talk given by Bill Hybels. The lesson that stuck for me is this, for there to be a viable destination, here must be untenable. In other words, you must be convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt, that here – the status-quo, business-as-usual – is utterly unacceptable. Only then will there be a compelling alternative, one that pulls you through inevitable obstacles.

Develop a Strategy

Once you are clear on who you are, what you have to offer, and where you are going, then you need to develop a strategy to get from here to there that leverages your capabilities. A friend of mine, Mark Rhodes, recently wrote an article laying out five essentials of an effective strategy. Though the post is written with organizations in mind, it could just as well be applied at an individual level. An effective strategy is: 1) deeply understood; 2) ensures flexibility and adaptability; 3) results from varied input; 4) factors in a deep analysis of the external environment and internal capabilities; and, 5) identifies areas of competitive advantage.

I highly recommend the entire article, though I would like to emphasize the fifth essential, identifying areas of competitive advantage. Your unique set of talents, strengths, and competencies make up your own personal competitive advantage. As Mark says, “you cannot be world class at everything…[but] you must be world class at something that differentiates you from the competition.”

Unless you get more specific regarding the factors that differentiate you from everyone else and the particular ingredients that contributed to your greatest successes, it will be difficult to explain your success without resorting to cliché and generalities (e.g., I’m good with people; I’m good with numbers; I’m a creative type). So long as we speak of our successes in generalities, it will remain difficult to see them as anything other than accidents of good fortune; mysterious and difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce (other than by accident). However, your future success does not have to be by accident.

What got you here, will get you there, too.

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Jeremiah Dodson is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach and consultant to individuals and business leaders. He is an experienced practitioner in strengths-based development. You can also find him at theadventureelement.com

This blog first appeared here.