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Overview
When you think of a business executive, what do you picture? A suit and tie? What about his personality? Most people imagine that he is ambitious, competitive, busy and self-obsessed. That’s not too far from the truth! Many successful executives have unpleasant personality traits. They’re proud of those characteristics because they helped them succeed in their careers.
Marshall Goldsmith is a coach who has worked with successful people. He has learned that some of their bad habits are holding them back from even more success. These key points discuss the harmful behavior and how it can be remedied right away.
In this article, you’ll learn how Gerald Levin hurt his reputation at Time Warner. You’ll also discover why it’s not a good idea to think of your flaws as virtues and how to always say thank you.
Big Idea #1: Many of us become increasingly superstitious as we achieve greater levels of success.
Even if you don’t literally knock on wood every time something good happens to you, you might still be prone to superstitious thinking. And it’s not just you! Many people are prone to this kind of behavior—they engage in bad habits that they think will bring them success.
When we behave in a certain way and achieve the desired goal, we think that’s what caused our success. But it may be possible that we succeeded despite our behavior, not because of it. For example, once I was working with an executive who was great at his job but had one major flaw—he wasn’t a good listener. His colleagues were aware of this problem but decided to ignore it since he always delivered results anyway.
The executive concluded that his poor listening skills were actually good for him because they made it easier to reject bad ideas and protect his creativity.
The executive may have been successful in the past, but he has a problem that is preventing him from being more effective. He’s too defensive to accept criticism and needs to work on his listening skills.
But in the future, that might not be enough. People skills will become more and more valuable. And how long will his colleagues put up with his bad behavior?
Big Idea #2: Avoiding mistakes is a major part of a job well done, so let’s recognize that fact in the workplace.
Let’s say you’ve just closed a big deal. You probably think that your boss will congratulate you soon.
But what if you realized that the deal wouldn’t be profitable for your company? Would you still expect much kudos from your boss? Probably not.
Most people feel appreciated when they do a good job, but not everyone gets the same treatment for avoiding something bad. In other words, it’s rare to honor someone for making a good decision.
This is due to the fact that in today’s fast paced business environment, professionals are under constant pressure to deliver great results. In order to achieve this, they believe that they need something new and different on their table.
However, it doesn’t work that way in our personal lives. For example, imagine if you quit smoking. You’d probably congratulate yourself on your achievement!
In business, we can learn from the mistakes of others. Gerald Levin is a former chairman of Time Warner who made an unfortunate decision to merge with AOL. If he had only walked away from that deal, he could have preserved his legacy and not tarnished it.
Companies should stop their employees from engaging in destructive behavior. It’s a matter of changing the culture, and it starts at the top.
