Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be - Couverture souple

Advance Acclaim for Marshall Goldsmith and Triggers

"Triggers provides the self awareness you need to create your own world, rather than being created by the world around you."
-- Alan Mulally, CEO of the Year (US) and #3 on Fortune magazine's 50 Greatest Leaders in the World (2014) 

"Reading Triggers is like talking with Marshall. You get clear, practical, and actionable suggestions."
--Ian Read, CEO, Pfizer

"Triggers inspires us to be better people, better leaders, better fellow travelers. 'Creating behavior' is our new battle cry for a bright future."
--Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO, The Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, 1998 Presidential Medal of Freedom Award Recipient

"Marshall is a valuable coach and partner in driving organizational change and performance improvement. Triggers will guide a new group of executives looking to reach their full business and personal potential." 
--Brian C. Cornell, Chairman and CEO, Target Corporation

"Marshall Goldsmith is one of the world's foremost experts at helping people get better. In this new book, he provides a rich set of new, practical, life tested ideas, concepts and frameworks that will help those of us who want to change, be the best that we can be, and be the person we want to be."
--Hubert Joly, CEO, Best Buy

“I have had the great fortune of working with Marshall for several years. He has helped me in so many ways. Triggers represents a natural progression in Marshall’s work and many of the ideas in it have already helped me and many of his other clients. As with all of his books, I know that Marshall’s focused, practical and insightful approach will help you in leadership, but even more important, it can help you in life!”
--Jim Yong Kim – 12th President The World Bank
 
“Marshall Goldsmith is a great author and world-renowned executive coach. His contribution to our group has been immense and we have greatly benefited by his unparalleled experience and his knowledge. In Triggers he shares illuminating stories from his work with great global leaders. He helps us transform our lives and helps us become more holistic human beings. This is a book worth reading for every practicing professional and for those who aspire to leadership.
--GM Rao – CEO GMR Group (India), Indian Entrepreneur of the Year
 
“How do we create the change we need for our organizations and for ourselves? Marshall Goldsmith is the master of helping us all find that path, avoiding the negative triggers and building upon the triggers that bring out our best. Here, again, he teaches with his unique insight, warmth and positive energy. Our job is to learn and do better, for a better outcome for all, which this book helps guide.”
--Tony Marx – CEO New York Public Library
 
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks...without Marshall Goldsmith’s help. With his coaching, you can change your old behavior to create new outcomes.”
--Deanna Mulligan – CEO Guardian Life, Fortune 50 Most Powerful Women in Business
 
“We place a premium on developing strong leaders at McKesson and over the years we have relied greatly on Marshall’s leadership insights to support our executive talent development across the company. No matter what role a person plays in an organization, Triggers provides a hands-on framework for helping people live with intention and greater purpose, both professionally and personally.”
--John Hammergren – CEO McKesson, Harvard Business Review 100 Top Performing CEOs in the World
 
“No one can match Marshall’s massive footprint in helping people become what they want to be. He is the top thought leader in executive coaching because he drives new thinking about self-motivation. The importance of self-awareness, self-engagement and positive behavioral change is best captured in Triggers. It will help light up many lives!”
--Fred Hassan – Managing Director Warburg Pincus, former CEO Pharmacia and Schering Plough, Chairman Bausch & Lomb
 
“Triggers is fantastic! It is a summary of all the things that Marshall has taught me over the past years...that we can’t really reach our personal goals until we move away from self-centered goals. In order to become the person we aspire to be, we need to embark on a journey of awareness that requires attention, action and discipline.”
-- David Chang - James Beard Foundation Outstanding Chef Award winner, Founder and CEO Momofuku Group
 
 “I’ve known Marshall for years and loved working with him. Reading Triggers reminds me of being coached by Marshall. It makes me laugh, causes me to reflect, and, most importantly, gets me to do something positive.”
--Liz Smith, CEO Bloomin’ Brands (Outback, Fleming’s, Roy’s, Carrabba’s and Bonefish restaurants)
 
 
 “This is a great book. Building on his brilliant career as an author and executive coach advising CEOs on how to be more successful leaders, Marshall here tackles a much more important and fundamental challenge: "How can we each become the person we really want to be?" Read this book and find out.”
--Mark Tercek, President and CEO The Nature Conservancy, former Managing Partner, Goldman Sachs, author Natures Fortune
 
“I had the great privilege of being coached by Marshall. He has been able to trigger change in my life and help me move to the next level of leadership. He has changed my life and my career. Triggers could do it for you!”
--Regis Schultz – CEO The Darty Group (France), one of Europe’s top electrical retailers
 
“Marshall has taught me the importance of making a positive difference in every aspect of my life. His coaching techniques and valuable lessons empower you to extract greater meaning from interpersonal relationships and provide a superior understanding of the great results that can be achieved through positive leadership.”
--David Kornberg – CEO Express
 
“Another phenomenal book from Marshall, full of practical advice to change behaviors for the better. A fun and very enlightening read.”
--Jan Carlson – CEO Autoliv (Sweden), world leader in auto safety
 
“Imagine that for the cost of a book, you can receive personal, career guidance from World's Best Coach? Marshall Goldsmith is that Coach. Triggers is that book. Marshall reveals how you can identify and remove blockers to your personal growth. But the key is the doing not the planning. So buy the book and start the doing!”
--Jim Lawrence – CEO Rothschild North America
 
“Marshall continues on his journey of creating tools to develop effective leaders. In Triggers he presents simple and effective methods that we can use to reinvent ourselves. Once there's an understanding of the behaviors that will get you to the next level, Marshall showcases how to ensure continued success. A must read for leaders and those who aspire to be very successful leaders.”
--Joe Almeida – CEO Covidien
 
“Marshall's coaching invites leaders to focus relentlessly on our behavior. The leader's behavior as well as the team's behavior become the basis for great results and continuous improvement. This will be a key to success for the connected, global, knowledge-driven companies of the future. Triggers accelerates our focus on creating the change we need to succeed.”
--Aicha Evans – VP and General Manager, Intel, Fortune Top Ten Next Generation Female Leaders
 
“Triggers is just like Marshall – a combination of great coaching and a fun personality!”
--Jonathan Klein – Founder and Chairman, Getty Images
 
“Marshall Goldsmith’s Triggers is a wonderful read. By using real world examples to teach key leadership points he adds tremendous credibility to the valuable leaders’ lesson contained throughout the book.”
--Nils Lommerin -- President & CEO, Del Monte Foods, Inc.
 
“Once again Marshall Goldsmith proves why he is not just one of the top 10 business thinkers but one of the top 10 all around thinkers! What I love most about this book is that it’s not just for business leaders, it provides a clear path to improvement for anyone who wants to make positive change in their lives. Thanks again Marshall for helping me make positive and lasting improvements in my behaviors and my life – my family thanks you too!”
--Fred Lynch -- CEO Masonite International
 
“Triggers is this year’s must-read for leaders who want to learn what they can do to generate lasting, meaningful change for their organizations—and themselves.  Marshall has this seemingly effortless way of guiding people to what really matters. He has taught me, as he has countless others, how to bring rigor and compassion to being a leader. For me, life is good because Marshall is in it.”
--Sandy Ogg -- Operating Partner, The Blackstone Group
 
“Marshall is an amazing coach who helped me become a better leader and a better person. He has a unique blend of intelligence, insight, and practical steps to improve performance. As he says in his new book, Triggers, there is a big difference between understanding and doing — we all understand what to do, but Marshall gives us the tools to actually change for the better.”
--Robert Pasin, CEO Radio Flyer
 
“In Triggers Marshall helps us understand behavioral traps we are constantly exposed to, and how to either avoid them or turn them into positive experiences.  As usual, he is logical and intuitive --it all makes sense, but that does not mean that change is easy. You have to want it. I enjoyed reading this book.  As with my coaching sessions with Marshall, I have come away with valuable insights which will help nudge me toward becoming the person I want to be. Life is good.”
--Soren Schroder – CEO Bunge
 
 “Triggers is Marshall at his story-telling best. Marshall has a unique ability to enable leaders to put down their well-developed guards, to see not what is wrong, but what is possible if they dedicate themselves to getting better. This is a must read for anyone who wants to get better at work and life.”
--Brian Walker, President and CEO Herman Miller
 
“If you want to change your behavior, become the best person you can be, overcome bad habits that get in your way, and have less regret in your life then read this book—and apply its advice immediately. Marshall Goldsmith’s Triggers is the most straightforward, clear, candid, no-fads, practical advice you’ll ever get on how to make change happen in your life. Marshall brings to this book the full force of his nearly four decades of coaching experience and shares profound insights, compelling stories, and powerful techniques that you can put to use now that will benefit your career, your relationships, and your peace-of-mind for years to come. His questioning routines are alone worth the price of the book. Triggers is Marshall Goldsmith’s finest work yet, and I highly recommend it.”
--Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the multi-million seller, The Leadership Challenge, and the Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University
 
“At the Thinkers50 we have long appreciated Marshall Goldsmith's blend of practical advice and timeless human insight. Triggers is his best book yet.”
--Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove, co-founders of Thinkers50, world leaders in the evaluation and dissemination of management thinking
 
“I’m a raving fan of Marshall Goldsmith—and you will be, too, when you read Triggers. Marshall promises that if he does his job as author and you do your job as reader/learner, you will move closer to becoming the person you want to be and also have fewer regrets. Not too bad! So read it!”
--Ken Blanchard, one of the bestselling non-fiction authors in history, co-author of The One Minute Manager and Refire! Don’t Retire
 
“I have known and worked with Marshall for thirty years. Packed with awesomely real truths about how we are with ourselves and how to make life better, Triggers is the next step forward in his amazing career.”
--David Allen, world leader in personal productivity and multi-million selling author of Getting Things Done
 
“In Triggers, Marshall Goldsmith distills wisdom gained from decades of helping people – clients and friends – struggle with truly changing their behavior. Though the book is written in an engaging, approachable way, it is nonetheless profound.  Marshall is more than just a coach. He’s a provocateur, a humorist, and a challenger. If it’s feedback you need to hear to ‘trigger’ the change you need to make, Marshall would be my top choice.”
--Rita Gunther McGrath, Thinkers50 – Most Influential Strategic Thinker in the World, author of The End of Competitive Advantage

“There are things about myself that I want to change or improve but I always flame out after a little while, blaming work, travel, family responsibilities, etc. Well now I have no excuse! In Triggers, Marshall not only distills the obstacles to change, he provides a simple (but not necessarily easy) process that allows us to overcome the main roadblocks to positive change: consistency and the environment. After reading this book, I am ready to try!”
--Chris Cuomo – Emmy, Peabody and Edward R. Morrow award-winning news reporter and host of CNN’s New Day
 
“I have seen Marshall perform magic, helping an executive break through and realize her potential and now in Triggers he generously shares his secret sauce. A must read.”
--Keith Ferrazzi - #1 New York Times bestselling author of Whose Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone
 
“My professional career has been devoted to helping organizations create strategy, implement strategy and achieve breakthrough innovation. Triggers can help you create a strategy for your life, implement your strategy and achieve breakthrough innovation.”
--Vijay Govindarajan - Coxe Distinguished Professor Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School and the New York Times bestselling author of Reverse Innovation
 
“There is a reason Marshall is the world’s #1 Executive Coach, it's because he understands people and how to get them performing at their best. This book is a breakthrough in how you and your people reach your peak levels of performance and then stay there. Just one strategy we implemented has the productivity of my executive team soaring. As the Chairman of the world’s largest business coaching company, I read a lot of books on business and personal success, very, very few deliver the way Marshall has here.”
--Brad Sugars – President, Chairman & Founder of ActionCOACH
 
“

Part One

Why Don't We Become the Person We Want to Be?

Chapter 1

The Immutable Truths of Behavioral Change

As an executive coach, I've been helping successful leaders achieve positive lasting change in behavior for more than thirty-five years. While almost all of my clients embrace the opportunity to change, some are a little reluctant in the beginning. Most are aware of the fact that behavioral change will help them become more effective leaders, partners, and even family members. A few are not.

My process of helping clients is straightforward and consistent. I interview and listen to my clients' key stakeholders. These stakeholders could be their colleagues, direct reports, or board members. I accumulate a lot of confidential feedback. Then I go over the summary of this feedback with my clients. My clients take ultimate responsibility for the behavioral changes that they want to make. My job is then very simple. I help my clients achieve positive, lasting change in the behavior that they choose as judged by key stakeholders that they choose. If my clients succeed in achieving this positive change-as judged by their stakeholders-I get paid. If the key stakeholders do not see positive change, I don't get paid.

Our odds of success improve because I'm with the client every step of the way, telling him or her how to stay on track and not regress to a former self. But that doesn't diminish the importance of these two immutable truths:

Truth #1: Meaningful behavioral change is very hard to do.

It's hard to initiate behavioral change, even harder to stay the course, hardest of all to make the change stick. I'd go so far as to say that adult behavioral change is the most difficult thing for sentient human beings to accomplish.

If you think I'm overstating its difficulty, answer these questions:

* What do you want to change in your life? It could be something major, such as your weight (a big one), your job (big too), or your career (even bigger). It could be something minor, such as changing your hairstyle or checking in with your mother more often or changing the wall color in your living room. It's not my place to judge what you want to change.

* How long has this been going on? For how many months or years have you risen in the morning and told yourself some variation on the phrase, "This is the day I make a change"?

* How's that working out? In other words, can you point to a specific moment when you decided to change something in your life and you acted on the impulse and it worked out to your satisfaction?

The three questions conform to the three problems we face in introducing change into our lives.

We can't admit that we need to change-either because we're unaware that a change is desirable, or, more likely, we're aware but have reasoned our way into elaborate excuses that deny our need for change. In the following pages, we'll examine-and dispense with-the deep-seated beliefs that trigger our resistance to change.

We do not appreciate inertia's power over us. Given the choice, we prefer to do nothing-which is why I suspect our answers to "How long has this been going on?" are couched in terms of years rather than days. Inertia is the reason we never start the process of change. It takes extraordinary effort to stop doing something in our comfort zone (because it's painless or familiar or mildly pleasurable) in order to start something difficult that will be good for us in the long run. I cannot supply the required effort in this book. That's up to you. But through a simple process emphasizing structure and self-monitoring I can provide you with the kick start that triggers and sustains positive change.

We don't know how to execute a change. There's a difference between motivation and understanding and ability. For example, we may be motivated to lose weight but we lack the nutritional understanding and cooking ability to design and stick with an effective diet. Or flip it over: we have understanding and ability but lack the motivation. One of the central tenets of this book is that our behavior is shaped, both positively and negatively, by our environment-and that a keen appreciation of our environment can dramatically lift not only our motivation, ability, and understanding of the change process, but also our confidence that we can actually do it.

I vividly recall my first decisive behavioral change as an adult. I was twenty-six years old, married to my first and only wife, Lyda, and pursuing a doctorate in organizational behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since high school I had been a follicly challenged man, but back then I was loath to admit it. Each morning I would spend several minutes in front of the bathroom mirror carefully arranging the wispy blond stands of hair still remaining on the top of my head. I'd smooth the hairs forward from back to front, then curve them to a point in the middle of my forehead, forming a pattern that looked vaguely like a laurel wreath. Then I'd walk out into the world with my ridiculous comb-over, convinced I looked normal like everyone else.

When I visited my barber, I'd give specific instructions on how to cut my hair. One morning I dozed off in the chair, so he trimmed my hair too short, leaving insufficient foliage on the sides to execute my comb-over regimen. I could have panicked and put on a hat for a few weeks, waiting for the strands to grow back. But as I stood in front of the mirror later that day, staring at my reflected image, I said to myself, "Face it, you're bald. It's time you accepted it."

That's the moment when I decided to shave the few remaining hairs on the top of my head and live my life as a bald man. It wasn't a complicated decision and it didn't take great effort to accomplish. A short trim at the barber from then on. But in many ways, it is still the most liberating change I've made as an adult. It made me happy, at peace with my appearance.

I'm not sure what triggered my acceptance of a new way of self-grooming. Perhaps I was horrified at the prospect of starting every day with this routine forever. Or maybe it was the realization that I wasn't fooling anyone.

The reason doesn't matter. The real achievement is that I actually decided to change and successfully acted on that decision. That's not easy to do. I had spent years fretting and fussing with my hair. That's a long time to continue doing something that I knew, on the spectrum of human folly, fell somewhere between vain and idiotic. And yet I persisted in this foolish behavior for so many years because (a) I couldn't admit that I was bald, and (b) under the sway of inertia, I found it easier to continue doing my familiar routine than change my ways. The one advantage I had was (c) I knew how to execute the change. Unlike most changes-for example, getting in shape, learning a new language, or becoming a better listener-it didn't require months of discipline and measuring and following up. Nor did it require the cooperation of others. I just needed to stop giving my barber crazy instructions and let him do his job. If only all our behavioral changes were so uncomplicated.

Truth #2: No one can make us change unless we truly want to change.

This should be self-evident. Change has to come from within. It can't be dictated, demanded, or otherwise forced upon -people. A man or woman who does not wholeheartedly commit to change will never change.

I didn't absorb this simple truth until my twelfth year in the "change" business. By then I had done intensive one-on-one coaching with more than a hundred executives, nearly all successes but a smattering of failures, too.

As I reviewed my failures, one conclusion leapt out: Some people say they want to change, but they don't really mean it. I had erred profoundly in client selection. I believed the clients when they said they were committed to changing, but I had not drilled deeper to determine if they were telling the truth.

Not long after this revelation, I was asked to work with Harry, the chief operating officer of a large consulting firm. Harry was a smart, motivated, hardworking deliver-the-numbers alpha male who was also arrogant and overdelighted with himself. He was habitually disrespectful to his direct reports, driving several of them away to work for the competition. This development rattled the CEO, hence the call to me to coach Harry.

Harry talked a good game at first, assuring me that he was eager to get started and get better. I interviewed his colleagues and direct reports, even his wife and teenage children. They all told the same story. Despite his abundant professional qualities, Harry had an overwhelming need to be the smartest person in the room, always proving that he was right, winning every argument. It was exhausting and off-putting. Who could say how many opportunities had vanished because people loathed being pummeled and browbeaten?

As Harry and I reviewed his 360-degree feedback, he claimed to value the opinions of his co-workers and family members. Yet whenever I brought up an area for improvement, Harry would explain point by point how his questionable behavior was actually justified. He'd remind me that he majored in psychology in college and then analyze the behavioral problems of everyone around him, concluding that they needed to change. In a mind-bending display of chutzpah, he asked me for suggestions in helping these people get better.

In my younger days, I would have overlooked Harry's resistance. Mimicking his arrogance and denial, I would have convinced myself that I could help Harry where lesser mortals would fail. Fortunately I remembered my earlier lesson: Some people say they want to change, but they don't really mean it. It was dawning on me that Harry was using our work together as another opportunity to display his superiority and to reverse the misperceptions of all the confused people surrounding him, including his wife and kids. By our fourth meeting I gave up the ghost. I told Harry that my coaching wouldn't be helpful to him and we parted ways. (I felt neither joy nor surprise when I later learned that the firm had fired Harry. Evidently the CEO had concluded that an individual who actively resists help has maxed out professionally and personally.)

I often call up my time with Harry as a stark example that, even when altering our behavior represents all reward and no risk-and clinging to the status quo can cost us our careers and relationships-we resist change.

We're even defeated by change when it's a matter of life and death. Consider how hard it is to break a bad habit such as smoking. It's so daunting that, despite the threat of cancer and widespread social disapproval, two-thirds of smokers who say they'd like to quit never even try. And of those who do try, nine out of ten fail. And of those who eventually quit-namely the most motivated and disciplined people-on average they fail six times before succeeding.

Compared to other behavioral changes in our lives, smoking is a relatively simple challenge. After all, it's a self-contained behavior. It's just you and your habit, a lone individual dealing with one demon. You either lick it or you don't. It's up to you-and only you-to declare victory. No one else gets a say in the matter.

Imagine how much harder it is when you let other people into the process-people whose actions are unpredictable, beyond your control-and their responses can affect your success. It's the difference between hitting warm-up tennis balls over the net and playing a match where an opponent is rocketing the balls back at you.

That's what makes adult behavioral change so hard. If you want to be a better partner at home or a better manager at work, you not only have to change your ways, you have to get some buy-in from your partner or co-workers. Everyone around you has to recognize that you're changing. Relying on other people increases the degree of difficulty exponentially.

Let that last sentence sink in before you turn the page. This is not a book about stopping a bad habit such as smoking cigarettes or dealing with your late-night craving for ice cream. Nicotine and ice cream aren't the target constituency here. It's about changing your behavior when you're among people you respect and love. They are your target audience.

What makes positive, lasting behavioral change so challenging-and causes most of us to give up early in the game-is that we have to do it in our imperfect world, full of triggers that may pull and push us off course.

The good news is that behavioral change does not have to be complicated. As you absorb the methods in the following pages, do not be lulled into dismissiveness because my advice sounds simple. Achieving meaningful and lasting change may be simple-simpler than we imagine.

But simple is far from easy.
Chapter 2

Belief Triggers That Stop Behavioral Change in Its Tracks

During the twelve years he was mayor of New York City, from 2001 to 2013, Michael Bloomberg was an indefatigable "social engineer," always striving to change people's behavior for the better (at least in his mind). Whether he was banning public smoking or decreeing that all municipal vehicles go hybrid, his objective was always civic self-improvement. Near the end of his third and final term in 2012, he decided to attack the childhood obesity epidemic. He did so by banning sales of sugary soft drinks in quantities greater than sixteen ounces. We can debate the merits of Bloomberg's idea and the inequities created by some of its loopholes. But we can all agree that reducing childhood obesity is a good thing. In one small way, Bloomberg was trying to alter the environment that tempts people to overconsume sugary drinks. His rationale was unassailable: if consumers-for example, moviegoers-aren't offered a thirty-two-ounce soft drink for a few pennies more than the sixteen-ounce cup, they'll buy the smaller version and consume less sugar. He wasn't stopping people from drinking all the sugary beverage they wanted (they could still buy two sixteen-ounce cups). He was merely putting up a small obstacle to alter people's behavior-like closing your door so people must knock before interrupting you.

Personally, I didn't have a dog in this race. (I am not here to judge. My mission is to help people become the person that they want to be, not tell them who that person is.) I watched Bloomberg's plan unfold purely as an exercise in the richness of our resistance to change. I love New York. The good citizens didn't disappoint.