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What Got You Here Won't Get You There
August 24, 2012
You’ve heard the story, or maybe it’s yours…
You’re hard working, intelligent. You meet all your goals and consistently exceed expectations. Your supervisor raves about the quality of your work and that your performance rises above your peers. Yet, year after year, you are not recognized and do not get promoted.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith discusses reasons why professionals don’t achieve greater success, and explains that this most often occurs because common workplace habits need to be broken.
In a recent Third Sector Innovations’ training, I heard a quote, “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise, and fired for their lack of emotional intelligence” (Goleman, 2006, Emotional Intelligence). Goldsmith points out that the skills that got you to a given level of success – intellect and business expertise – may not be enough, and that certain behaviors – emotional intelligence – may hold you back from greater success. He argues that bad habits often are not based in personality or intellect: “What we’re dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior.” He says that these “transactional flaws” are typically unconscious and manifest when working with – and, ultimately, against – others.
There is comfort in the fact that these “flaws” are not hard wired, and can be changed with the right motivation. Goldsmith talks about ways coaching can uncover the behaviors that hold you back…but that’s the easy part. The hard part is admitting the habit, realizing the habit is detrimental to career/life growth, and then finding the motivation to change; only then can the work begin and change/growth occur.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is a great guide to understanding what behaviors may be interfering with your success. It can help you to better recognize yourself and decide on next steps to moving forward in your career and otherwise finding your greatness!
You’re hard working, intelligent. You meet all your goals and consistently exceed expectations. Your supervisor raves about the quality of your work and that your performance rises above your peers. Yet, year after year, you are not recognized and do not get promoted.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith discusses reasons why professionals don’t achieve greater success, and explains that this most often occurs because common workplace habits need to be broken.
In a recent Third Sector Innovations’ training, I heard a quote, “CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise, and fired for their lack of emotional intelligence” (Goleman, 2006, Emotional Intelligence). Goldsmith points out that the skills that got you to a given level of success – intellect and business expertise – may not be enough, and that certain behaviors – emotional intelligence – may hold you back from greater success. He argues that bad habits often are not based in personality or intellect: “What we’re dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior, often leadership behavior.” He says that these “transactional flaws” are typically unconscious and manifest when working with – and, ultimately, against – others.
There is comfort in the fact that these “flaws” are not hard wired, and can be changed with the right motivation. Goldsmith talks about ways coaching can uncover the behaviors that hold you back…but that’s the easy part. The hard part is admitting the habit, realizing the habit is detrimental to career/life growth, and then finding the motivation to change; only then can the work begin and change/growth occur.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is a great guide to understanding what behaviors may be interfering with your success. It can help you to better recognize yourself and decide on next steps to moving forward in your career and otherwise finding your greatness!
A Whole New Mind
August 2, 2012
You’ve probably heard people described as either “left brain” or “right brain” thinkers. A person who is “left brained” is often said to be more logical, analytical and objective. Think attorneys, computer programmers, accountants. A person who is “right brained” is inclined to being intuitive, thoughtful, subjective; artists and musicians fall into this category.
This concept of left/right brain thinking developed from the late-1960s research of American psycho-biologist Roger W. Sperry, who actually won the Nobel Prize (1981) for this work. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. The left brain is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. The other (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details.
Traditionally, our information driven society has placed more value on “left brainers.” But Daniel H. Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the World, argues that America is moving into a “conceptual age” and that right-brain qualities – inventiveness, empathy, meaning – will be dominant attributes that have a better chance of overcoming the obstacles of this new era, while left-brain activities can be relegated to computers and outsourced to workers overseas.
Pink writes, ““…the defining skills of the previous era – the ‘left brain’ capabilities that powered the Information age – are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous – the ‘right-brain’ qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning – increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals, families, and organizations, professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind.”
What about you: Are you a left-brainer or right brainer? Has success in your organization traditionally been due to high left-brain function…and can you make the shift to the “Conceptual Age” and its call for right brain competencies???
posted by Suzy
This concept of left/right brain thinking developed from the late-1960s research of American psycho-biologist Roger W. Sperry, who actually won the Nobel Prize (1981) for this work. He discovered that the human brain has two very different ways of thinking. The left brain is verbal and processes information in an analytical and sequential way, looking first at the pieces then putting them together to get the whole. The other (the right brain) is visual and processes information in an intuitive and simultaneous way, looking first at the whole picture then the details.
Traditionally, our information driven society has placed more value on “left brainers.” But Daniel H. Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the World, argues that America is moving into a “conceptual age” and that right-brain qualities – inventiveness, empathy, meaning – will be dominant attributes that have a better chance of overcoming the obstacles of this new era, while left-brain activities can be relegated to computers and outsourced to workers overseas.
Pink writes, ““…the defining skills of the previous era – the ‘left brain’ capabilities that powered the Information age – are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous – the ‘right-brain’ qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning – increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals, families, and organizations, professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind.”
What about you: Are you a left-brainer or right brainer? Has success in your organization traditionally been due to high left-brain function…and can you make the shift to the “Conceptual Age” and its call for right brain competencies???
posted by Suzy
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