What Got You Here Won't Get You There

By: Marshall Goldsmith

The Premise 

"What got you here wont get you there" is a how to be successful guide for people that are already successful. Its a book that points out the 20 (21 actually) flaws that successful people have that prevent them from being more successful and outlines a plan of action. 

The Delivery

There is something about this book that I hated reading. I've never in my life left a book for more than a day if I was in reading it. Fiction wise I am obsessed with finishing a story the day I start reading it, otherwise I think its an offense to the writer. This book broke my rules. 

This isn't to say its a terrible book, or its poorly written or any critic on the writing style. Its actually fantastically written and relatively interesting, appropriate examples from personal and professional life are given, theres a decent amount of humor, and everything moves along at a brisk pace. In fact now that I am done with the book, I actually say I liked the book.

So, I'd give Marshall Goldsmith a lot of credit for writing on a difficult topic with humor and not dragging on in topics that other books. Perhaps the reason I disliked the book was the same reason that I think its a good book, there are a lot of comments in there that point out my own flaws. 

Pros

The book moves quickly, it doesn't lag and it doesn't drag.

The author is constantly giving examples of how he practices what he preaches and on his own shortcomings. I personally found this very refreshing and sometimes humorous. 

Everything in the book is within reach, he's not asking for someone to go from being an type A person to being a type B person, just making small specific changes to their behavior. 

Cons 

Okay, so this is a pro and a con.  A good majority of the things he writes about our things that I agree on. Things I know to be accurate and can see the value add in. However, and perhaps this is one of the things that turned me off to the book in the first place, he identifies certain mindsets and says that all successful people think that way. And I definitely don't think that way, not all the time at least.

This also might be a more personal note, but the action plan isn't practical for my organization. Working in a small company doesn't allow me to solicit 20 of my interactive coworkers for feedback. 

The Take Away

These are details from the book I would share with someone else. 

• Of the 20 flaws in successful people, there are two main categories 
1. Communication Flaws - Over sharing, over adding value, withholding information flaws of us lacking communication skills
2. Emotional Flaws- Acting in Anger instead of thinking things through, attributing bad personality traits to the intrinsic being "me", being a glory hog are all things that can be attributed to Emotional flaws. 
• Gratitude is an under appreciated art. An genuine apology is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. 
• The best people see the value in being around the best people. If you want to be successful, you need to design a team thats successful and deliver praise and compensation as it is deserved. 
• Makings someone feel as if they are important will get you far, making someone feel like they are the most important person in the room will get you anywhere.