What Got You Here Won't Get You There | Marshall Goldsmith | Talks at Google

Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming. My name is Evan Wittenberg. I work in the Leadership Development group here at Google. And we are very excited to have so many of you turn out today for the first of a new speaker series called Leading at Google. This could have been called Many Things. The person helping us open this today, Marshall Goldsmith, has published 23 books, so it could have been an Author at Google series. He is a preeminent coach, executive coach, so it could have been a Coaches at Google series. And we thank everybody for their participation in helping us develop this new series. The idea of the series is we get lots of wonderful people here at Google to talk about all kinds of stuff. This one is specifically to talk about leadership development, management development, managing yourself and your careers and your success in life, both professional and personal. So that's kind of why this series exists. We hope to have at least a couple talks a month and thanks for helping us kick it off. Our esteemed speaker today. And Marshall, thank you so much for coming is Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. He's a world authority in helping successful people get even better at what they do. He's worked with over 80 CEOs at the top companies in the world. And of course, we think what he has to say applies to all of us as well, not just our CEO. He has a PhD from UCLA. He studied math undergrad, as many of you in the room did, I think. And all of his materials are free online@marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com so he's very good about sharing his things out to the crowds. And this talk will also be shared, of course, on YouTube and elsewhere. I think that's all I want to say about Marshall. His book, which some of you got, we actually had more than normal and still they went very quickly. But his new book is called what Got yout Here, Won't get yout There. It was Wall Street Journal number one best selling business book. And it's how successful people like you can become even more successful. So that's all I'll say. And I'll introduce Marshall Goldsmith.

Thank you very much. I'm going to briefly introduce myself. We're going to cover a lot of stuff in a short period of time. My name is Marshall Goldsmith. I'm from Kentucky, went to school in Indiana, got a PhD at UCLA. I was a college professor. I was a dean when I was 29 years old and I've been doing executive education for 30 years. So I do three things. One is I teach classes and give talks. This is what I love doing. The most. And I teach inside big companies and I teach in lots of business schools. And then I write and edit books and articles. And again, please go to my website. It's called marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com you can copy, share, download, duplicate, use with any of your friends. I give all my stuff away. I'm a Buddhist. I figure, what the heck, I'm going to die anyway. Might as well do some good here. So you can use any of this stuff. What the heck, Go knock yourself out. One guy said he. One guy said he'd stolen my material. I said, no, you haven't stolen my material. He said, I've stolen your material. I said, you cannot steal what people give you, so you can't. I have a foolproof security system. You can't steal what people give you. So use any of my stuff. I hope it's useful to you. And then I do what's called executive coaching. And my clients are either CEOs or could be CEOs of multi billion dollar companies. And my coaching process is highly transferable. So it is a process. I can teach you to do how I do it as well as I do it. And the only thing I do different with my clients is they like me because they all have dinners together and they talk about life. So we all drink fancy booze, get drunk, talk about life and have a good time. It's good. I had a meeting about a year ago with my clients and the topic was what am I going to do with the rest of my life? And these are mostly people between 59, 62 years old and one guy was 61 and he was a number two guy in a big company. And he said, what do you think I ought to do? I said, you're number two. You're probably not going to be number one. Your numbers are way up here. You're kicking butt. Two or three years, your numbers go down, they're going to fire you anyway. Leave now. He said, leave and do what? I said, I don't know. Go out and find something exciting to do for profit. Not for profit. About a year ago he found an exciting new job. He is now the CEO of the Ford Motor Company. Yes, I'm proud of him. He chose to work for a non profit organization. So anyway, my job is great fun. The only hard part of my job is on American Airlines alone. I do have 9.5 million frequent flyer miles. So I'm a mega, mega flyer now. What are we going to be talking about? Understand the classic challenges faced by successful leaders. You all are mega successful people. And your very success can make it hard for you to change. So I want to talk about some unique challenges of successful people. We're going to practice something today called Feed Forward. I have some good news. My session is not just a lecture. You actually have to work in my program. You're actually going to talk to each other. And by the way, everyone in the room, I'm going to warn you in advance. You're going to pick one area for personal improvement. Each one of you is going to pick one. Now, if you have absolutely nothing to improve, you're going to pretend to have something to improve to make the others feel comfortable. So everybody's going to pick something to do better. We're going to learn a proven process. You can develop yourself how to coach people. And if we have a chance, we'll talk about peer coaching. Now let's get started. Rate your self, exercise. Well, 85% of all my clients have declared themselves to be in the top 20% of their peer group, 70% in the top 10, and 98% in the top half. The first thing you learn about successful people is successful people are delusional. And the more successful we become, the more delusional we get. And don't feel bad about being delusional. The most realistic people in the world are chronically depressed. Reality is grossly overrated. Delusional is okay. It just makes it hard to hear what we don't want to hear about ourselves. Now, teaching leaders what to stop had the privilege of spending over 50 days with Peter Drucker, world's greatest authority on management. He said, we spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. And that's what kind of led to my book now, Annoying Habits that Can Hold Us Back. Yes, I tried to meet as many of you as I can, and I'm looking around the room. Yes, I'm looking in your eyes. The first disease of successful people. I can see you're running rampant in this room. What is this problem called winning too much. And what does that mean? If it is important, we want to win. Meaningful, we want to win. Critical, we want to win. Trivial, we want to win not worth it. We want to win anyway. We like winning. I'm going to give you a case study that 75% of my successful clients fail. Yes, I will predict most of you will fail this case study. And when I say fail, they fail themselves. They say what I would do is the opposite of what I Know I should do. Are you ready? You want to go to dinner at Restaurant X? Your husband, wife, partner, friend, or significant other wants to go to dinner at Restaurant Y. You have a heated argument, you go to Restaurant Y. This was not your choice. The food tastes awful. The service is terrible. Option A, critique the food. Point out our partner was wrong. This mistake could have been avoided if only they would have listened to me. Me, me, me, me. Option B, shut up. Eat the stupid food, try to enjoy it, and have a nice evening. What would I do? What should I do? 75% of my clients. What would I do? Critique the food. What should I do? Shut up. How many people in the room have ever critiqued the food before? Raise your hands. Food critiquers. Yes. A room filled with food critiquers. Was this a smart thing or a stupid thing? Stupid. And as stupid as it was, yes, it was stupid. I'm going to give you an example now. That is so hideously stupid, it will make that one pale by comparison. And yes, I will predict that most of you have done this. Are you ready? You have a hard day at work. A hard day. You come home, your husband, wife, friend or partner is there, and the other person says, I had such a hard day today. I had such a tough day. And we reply, you had a hard day. You had a hard day. Do you have any idea what I had to put up with today? Do you think you had a hard day? We are so competitive. We have to prove we are more miserable than the person who lives with us. I give this example in one class. The guy in the back raised his hand. He said, I did that last week. I asked him, I said, what happened? He said, my wife looked at me. She said, honey, you just think you have had a hard day. It's not over. Now the next problem, a classic problem of smart, successful people adding too much value. What does this mean? I am young, smart, enthusiastic. I report to you. I come to you with an idea. You think it's a great idea. Rather than saying, great idea, our tendency is to say, that's a nice idea. Why don't you add this to it? The quality of the idea may now go up 5%. My commitment to its execution may now go down 50%. It's no longer my idea. Incredibly hard for smart, successful people not to constantly go through life adding value. Have any of you been trained as scientists or engineers before? Oh, this is a particularly bad disease for this group. Okay. We get so wrapped up on improving the quality 5%, we may damage the commitment by 50%. And by the way, most of the time we're adding too much value. What are we really doing Telling the world how smart we are. It's incredibly hard for smart, successful people not to constantly go through life telling the world how smart we are. Does anyone in the room have a PhD? Yes. A particular disease for people with a PhD right? Telling the world how smart we are. And the final one on this list is passing judgment. Four words to be a better coach. Help more, judge less. Now, the good news is everything I teach you today doesn't just apply at work, it applies at home. My favorite clients are stubborn and opinionated people. Are any of you all just a little stubborn or opinionated? And by the way, if we're stubborn and opinionated at work, what are the odds we become excessively open minded when we go home? Now, the best feedback I got as a coach last year came from a managing partner of Goldman Sachs. This Gentleman is worth $300 million. You know what he told me? You helped me become a better father. And you helped me become a better husband. What's that worth? Guy's got 300 million bucks anyway. He gets another million bucks, he ain't gonna get another house, ain't gonna get another car, and he ain't gonna get another dog. If he gets another wife, he ain't gonna have 300 million bucks. This is worth a lot. Now, using small amounts of money to create large changes of behavior. Now, for those of you who've seen my book, this is very counterintuitive. I never change the compensation plan. I don't change the performance appraisal system. I don't do any of those fancy things. I use tiny little amounts of money. And it is amazing how well this works to help people change behavior. And I donate all the money to charity. It's amazing how, and this is fun. It's a good thing to do. It's a great coaching tool and it doesn't hurt anybody. Now, let's see. Have any of you read my book so far? Anybody read the book? Yes. Are most of my clients, would they be women or men? What do you think? Most of them. They're mostly men. Would they be mostly young or old? Old. Would they be mostly poor or rich? Old rich men? Yes. Most of my clients are old rich men. Now, there's a common misperception about old rich men. That is, old rich men would not mind losing tiny amounts of money. That would be wrong. They hate losing any money. Watch them play golf. They lie, they cheat, they swear at each other. For what, $5? They hate losing money and it is amazing how well this helps people change behavior. Now let me give you some examples. Number one, destructive comments. Have you all been taught? We want to create positive relationships across the organization. We want to reach out to our co workers and develop positive win win relationships. Have you been taught these things? What happens to the quality of all these positive relationships when we stab our co workers in the back in front of other people? Does this make it better or worse? Are any of you all here in a corporate headquarters kind of staff job? Anyone? Liars. Somebody is. Well, you're in a staff job, aren't you? Yes, you are. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, think about it. Have any of you gotten into the bad habit of bum wrapping your co workers in front of other people? Very bad habit. Now, I don't want to look like I'm preaching at you. I also get feedback. If you look at my bio, all those glowing reports, none of that feedback came from my staff and none of it came from my family. In fact, this one report, Wall street journal, top 10 consultant in the world. My daughter reads this report. You know what she says? Daddy, I want to go into your field. I said, kelly, that makes daddy so proud. Why do you want to go into my field? She said, the standards are low. I never forget the first time I got feedback from my own staff. One item was called avoids destructive comments about other people. What score did I make? 8 percentile. 8. 92% of the people in the world did better than me and I wrote the test. I go back to my staff and said, staff, overall, I'm proud of my feedback. I feel good about this and this or something. I want to do better at business and not bum rapping other people. I teach everyone else not to do that. I said, I've been one of the worst offenders. If you ever hear me make another destructive comment about a person or group, you bring it to my attention. I'm going to pay you 10 bucks on the spot. Then I gave them a pep talk because I thought they'd be embarrassed to ask for the money. Pep talk was unneeded. They tricked me into making nasty comments to pick up the 10 bucks. I no more give this dumb talk than our clients call. I said, he wants something, he don't want to pay. He's cheap. $10. My partner Tim called us, said, that fool had to get a Ph.D. don't know anything. $10 by noon, I'm out 50 bucks. Locked myself in the office and refused to speak to anybody for the Rest of the day. First day it cost me 50 bucks. Second day, 30 bucks. Third day, 10 bucks still cost me money. What score did I make on that last time? 4.8 out of a possible 5. What does this teach You? Spend a few thousand dollars, you get better. Now another one I use. Money is a great one for stubborn people. No, but however. If somebody talks to you and the first word out of your mouth is no, what'd you say? You're wrong. But. Or however. What's that mean? Disregard everything that came before this word. This is a terrible habit of stubborn people. So one of my clients, I'm reviewing his feedback report, he says, but, Marshall, I said, that's free. If I ever talk to you again, you start a sentence with no butter, however, and fine you 20 bucks. He says, but Marshall, 20. No, 40. No, no, no. 6800. He lost $420 in an hour and a half. Now the guy's got a great sense of humor. At the end of an hour and a half, you know what he said? Thank you. He said, I had no idea. It is amazing how much better he got just doing that. Now, enough of my talk. We're all going to practice. We're going to practice something now called feedforward. Everyone in the room is going to pick one area for improvement. And by the way, if you cannot think of any, I'll give you a few thought starters. Do I have any people in the room who are too impatient? Do you have any impatient people? Yes. And by the way, would your friends and family members be happy if you became a little more patient? They might be, yes. Do I have any stubborn or opinionated people here? A few of those, yeah, a few stubborn ones. Anybody a little too judgmental? Yes. Yes. People at home be happy if you lost that, wouldn't they? How about anybody need to listen a little better? Let's take listening. Listening. Now let's take listening. You become a better listener. What happens to scores on treating people with respect up or down? How about coaching, teamwork, customer satisfaction, friends and family member. The way you get better at everything is don't try to change everything, just change something. Now, let's be honest. How many of you have co workers back on the job right now? Raise your hands. You have co workers? Yes. And your first name is? Are your co workers waiting for the new you to re emerge as a result of today's little talk? No. No, I don't think so. How much do your co workers really think you're going to change as a result of being here. What is the honest answer to this question? Almost nothing. And as low as the expectations of your co workers are, and let's be honest, they're incredibly low, there's one group of human beings that have even lower expectations than our coworkers. Who am I talking about? The people we live with. And if you do not believe this is true, you go home tonight and you talk to your spouse, partner, significant other. You know what you say? You know, dear, I met this friendly, bald behavioral coach, Marshall, and I'm going to be a better partner in our relationship based upon what I learned today. Look at the face of the other person. They have absolutely no belief you're going to change anything if you get better. Let me just tell you today, if you get better at one important behavior, just one, as judged by any important group of people over any significant period of time. How do I feel about our hour together? Bad hour or good hour? If you coach another person and help them get better at any important behavior, as judged by any significant group over any significant period of time, how should you feel? Feel good. You just made the world a better place, not only for them, but for everyone around them. So everybody in the room is going to pick one behavior to improve. What's one thing you want to get better at? I want to be less judgmental. Less judgmental. That's good. How about you? More patient. How about you? Yeah. It could be recognition. Or by the way, here's another thing I would teach about coaching. If people get better, where's it got to come from? Inside them? You ain't gonna make anybody change what they don't want to change. Have any of you ever attempted to change the behavior of a successful adult that had no interest in changing? Any of you ever tried this? How much luck did you have in these religious conversion activities? Now I'm going to ask you a question. Is this an honest group of people of high character and ethics? What do you think? Except for me. Except for you. The others are pretty honest, right? We're going to test this. I'm going to ask you all a question. A troublesome question, A personal question. Yes. Even an embarrassing question. If the answer is yes, you must raise your hands. How many people in this room are still stupidly attempting to change the behavior of a husband, wife, partner or significant other who has absolutely no interest in changing? Come on, raise your hands. A room filled with waving hands. How long have you been engaged in this stupid behavior? Give me a number. Forever. Forever. It hasn't helped at all. Has it what is this person's name? She doesn't want to say. I'm going to help everybody. Let it go. If you don't learn anything else from me today but this tiny lesson, you'll be a better coach and have a happier life if people don't care. Don't waste your time as a coach. Put your time and energy in with the ones that do care. Now if you're going to get better, the motivation for your improvement is going to come largely from one place. Where is that? Inside you. I can't make you change anything. My job is not to make you change what you don't want to change. It's to help you change what you do want to change. So pick one behavior. You think if I get better at this, it's to going going to make a positive difference in my life, my job, try to help you get better at that. Okay, now everybody's going to pick one. I'm going to participate as well. My own area for improvement is I like people too much. I'm highly extroverted. I need more time thinking, writing and reflecting for every person listens to me speak. There are a hundred people reading something I've written. It's not easy for me. It has nothing to do with money. I'm always flying on the airplane. On American airlines, I have 9.5 million frequent flying miles. I always put off going to the airport till the last minute. And sometimes I'm flying on the plane. Sometimes a poor man sits next to me. Occasionally we're on a six hour flight, he makes a terrible mistake. He looks up and he goes, what do you do for a living? Six hours later I look over, he's going. Great. Is the need of the student to learn. Far greater is the need of the teacher to teach. My problem is not doing what I do, it's stopping. How many of you have a problem not doing what you do, but stopping doing what you do? Sometimes the problem isn't turning it on. Sometimes our problem is turning it off. Everyone in the room is going to pick one area for improvement. Now we're going to practice something called feedforward. In feedforward, you're going to be in two roles. Role number one, it's going to be called learn as much as I can. Are there some smart people in this room? Yes or no?

Yes.

If you had a chance to learn from these smart people, would you like to do that? Very good. Role number two is going to be called help as much as I can. Are there some nice people in this room? Yes. If you had a chance to help these nice people, would you like to do that? You're going to be learning or helping as much as you can. Depends on what role you're in. Now, what are the rules? Rule 1, no feedback about the past. I want everyone in the room to stare intently at the faces of everyone else in the room. Look around the room. Look at all these faces. Now, let's all take a deep breath. You see, whatever sins anyone in this room has committed up until this second in time, we ain't going to fix those. We spend too much time talking about the past anyway. You can't change the past. Have any of you been impressed with your wife, husband or partner's near photographic memory of your previous sins, which have been documented and will be shared with you in a repetitive and annoying way where you. You can't change the past anyway. Rule one, no feedback about the past. And rule two is the hard rule. You can't judge or critique suggestions. When people give you ideas, don't say, good idea, bad idea. I already knew that. That'll never work. No matter what people tell you, you must stand there, shut up, listen. If you have pencil and paper, take notes. If not, just listen. All you can say is thank you. Now, how does this work? You come to me and say, I want to get better at X. I'm going to give you one or two very quick ideas. No feedback about the past, only ideas for the future. What do you say? Thank you. No matter what I say, you say, thank you. I say, I want to get better at why. You give me one or two ideas. What do I say? Thank you. We shake hands. You rush off and talk to somebody else. This is a competitive exercise. It's going to last five to 10 minutes. We're going to see who can talk to the most people in the next five to 10 minutes. Four guidelines. Positive, simple, focused, and fast. Now, I want everybody to stand up. And stand up. You now have 20 seconds to get out from behind those chairs and get down here. To your marks. Get set, go. 20 seconds. Let's go. Get down here. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Walk to the front. 20 seconds. Get out from behind your chairs. Yeah, get out from behind your chairs. Okay, hold. Does everybody understand the exercise? No. Let me tell. No. No. All right, back to listening. Shh. Shh. Everybody picks one behavior to improve. You come to me and say, I want to get better at X. I give you one or two quick ideas for the future. No feedback about the past. What do you say thank you? I say I want to get better at y. One or two quick ideas. I say thank you. Shake hands. Positive, simple, focused and fast. Talk to as many people as you can possibly talk to in the next five to ten minutes. Two marks. Get set. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.

So at the end of this. Yeah, before, like after you close, I'd like to do a couple thank yous and then say that you'll be up here to talk to anybody.

I'm gonna stick around. Now. Get me the mic. I need that. The handheld microp.

Lots of things.

Just pick one. I tend to dwell on my mistakes a lot. Okay, stop. I like to improve. Breathe. Life is short. You're going to die anyway. Three words. Be happy. Now. How old are you? Thank you, Marshall. 38. Thank you. Thank you. I'm 58. You're 20 years younger than me. Be happy. You're gonna die. Be happy. Don't worry about all this crap so much. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you.

Yeah.

I want to get better. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Quit worrying so much. Just say thank you. Thank you. I want to get better at being by myself. I spent too much time with people. Give me an idea. Should work.

When you're ready for a.

Just put it right down there. What do you want? What should I do different? I need more time for writing and thinking. Too much time with people. What do I want to get better at? You give me an idea. Well, I would say, you know, maybe just spend more time with your family. I guess if you're traveling all the time. Thank you. Help you enjoy my clothes. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Marshall. Hi.

Karen.

Nice to meet you. What do you want to get better at, Karen? I'd like to be less impatient. Look, patient. Most people feel we're impatient. Not by what we say. It's how we look. Look, patient will help you feel patient. And people will feel you're more patient. Thank you. I want to be by myself more. Thinking and writing. I spend too much time with people. What idea do you have? Me. You should block off some time on your calendar. That's your alone time or think time. And make sure you don't schedule over that so you have some time to keep that separate. Hope you enjoy my little class today. Thank you. Hello. Marshall Okam. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. What do you want to get better at? Listening to other people. Instead of waiting for my turn to speak. Breathe. And before you speak, ask one question. What is more important? The comment I am about to make or my relationship with this human being. Thank you. Thank you. I want to be better at thinking and writing. I spend too much time with people. I think one thing, maybe you should just, if you really have a hard time doing it, just get away from people. If there are no people to talk to, then you're not a big problem.

I don't.

Take a vacation or something. Thank you. I hope you enjoy my class.

That's great.

Thank you. Hello. Hello. I'm Raj. Nice to meet you. So I think there's some confusion about the request, but what I understand is talk about one thing you want to work on. What do you want to get better at? Yeah, I want to get better at not learning what not to do. So that what I'm doing, I'm doing it 100.

Good.

First thing is before you commit to do something, write down the two or three most important priorities of your life. Put them on a computer screen so you see them all the time. And before you commit to do any new thing, ask yourself, what will this do to that? And a lot of times we do little things at the expense of big things. Okay. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you. You say thank you now. Thank you. I want to do better at being by myself. I spend too much time with people. I need to think more and write more. So you want to think more and write more? Yeah, more alone time. So my advice is, is that you have a calendar, right? You block your some time off. Thank you. You don't allow anybody else to do anything and you really force yourself to do that. Okay. I hope you enjoy my class. Thank you. Hello, Marshall. What do you want to get better at? So I want to get better at be patient. Look patient. Most people feel we're impatient. Not that what we say, it's how we look. Look patient. Thank you. I want to be better at being by myself, thinking and writing. I spend too much time with people. What idea do you have for me? So one thing you can do, like, I don't know, if you try, like meditation, this kind of stuff, like you could try. But actually one of my problem is like this. I'm very introvert. You're very extrovert. So how do you kind of like.

Raise eyes with people?

Sorry, do this. Do this. Yeah. I've been like seven people already. Thank you. It's just like, generally, why worrying so much? Don't worry so much. Don't worry so much. Life is too short. Thank you. Can you help me? Can you please hold this chair so I don't fall down. Yeah. Can you help me as well? Can you guys both hold this chair? You hold the back and you hold the front so I don't kill myself. One of you hold this part. Oh, stop. Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Look up here, look up here, look up here. I'm going to go like this. When I go like this, you will all shout out one word loudly and so simultaneously. This will be the first word that pops into your head. I will begin a sentence. I will leave out the last word. I will go like this. And you shout out a word. Okay, is everybody ready? This little exercise was positive, useful, helpful, fun. People say good things. One of the most common words you heard was fun. What's the last word you think to describe any feedback activity? Fun. Has anyone ever called you on the phone and said, I have feedback I'd like to share with you. Please come to my office. And you said, fun, fun, fun, fun. You guys got to hold it so don't die. Fun is the last word comes to your mind. I've done this with tens of thousands of people around the world. 95% say it's positive, useful, helpful, or even fun. The answer to this question will help you be a better coach. Why? You now have 20 seconds. Remain standing. Join a group with three, four or five people. If you have six, break up into two groups of three. To your marks. Get set. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Except for you guys. You stay here. Hold it, Anthony. I don't want to die. You two stay here. Ok, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Raise your right hand in the air. Point your right index finger at the ceiling point. When I count to three, point your spokesperson one through point. Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You now have 90 seconds to answer this question in your team. The answer will help you be a better coach. Why do 90% of the participants in the exercise say it's positive, useful, helpful, or even fun to remarks? Get set. Talk to your team members. Go. No matter what I say to you, you say thank you. And that's great. I love that. I know that I'm not going to get back up. Okay, stop, stop. Hold this, please. Hold this, please. Sit on the back. Okay, stop, stop, stop. I'm going to call on some spokespeople I like your group, your group, your group, your group, your group, your group, your group and your group. Send your spokespeople down to the front. Everyone else can sit down. Okay, come on down. Good luck. Okay. Mobile mic can you turn on the. Oh, good, it's on. Okay. Mobile mic. Testing, testing. Come on down, spokespeople.

All right.

Okay. Come on down, spokespeople. Now, spokespeople, talk loudly and talk into the mic. You're not just talking to me, you're talking to the whole group. Why do people define the exercise to be positive, useful, helpful, or even fun and pass it over to him when you get done? So our answer was you're mostly talking to people who don't know your past. I mean, these are your colleagues, but they don't know your past. So it's almost anonymous feedback without any bias towards mistakes. No, no baggage. No baggage. A common misconception of coaching is I have to have a deep knowledge of you to help you. Wrong. How many of you learned something interesting from somebody you don't even know? You don't have to know people to help you. Sometimes we learn more from people we don't know. Excellent. You can sit down. Next. We were all laughing. You're all laughing. Another good idea for good coaching. Don't take it that seriously. We're all going to die anyway. Have some fun. Have some fun here. Might as well. Thank you. Next. Yes. It was a game. It was competitive. It's a game. Yes. Make this all more of a game. Not so serious, not so intense. Next. My group felt like kids. We were playing and we got immediate gratification. And it was just for fun. It's just for fun. And by the way, here's the key. When we coach people, if they don't care, they're not going to do it anyway. So why get all wrapped up in some serious stuff? They're not going to do it anyway if they don't want to. This is a Buddhist exercise. I'm a Buddhist. One thing Buddhist said is when I teach you something, only do what works in the context of your own life. If it doesn't work, don't do it. Well, in the exercise, when people give you ideas, it's like a gift. If you want to do it, do it. You don't want to do it, don't do it. But don't sit there and say, stinky gift, bad gift. I don't like your gift. Okay. Why? We liked it because we were talking as equals and nobody got to be wrong. Key point. Two key points. One, two way, not one, one way. Totally different. You come to me and say, I want to get better at X. Please help me. I say, I can get better, too. Please help me. I want to get better. At Y. Do you see how different that feels than you saying, you get better, I got nothing to improve. You get better. Completely different dynamics. Yes. Thank you. I said three things. First is infinitely much better than what they could have been doing at their desks at this point in time. Okay, that's one second. Sense of adventure. Who am I going to meet next? The thrill. That's right. It's fun to meet new people. And third one was gifting, the sense of, I give something to the person, I receive something back. And again, we love to give people ideas when asked. One reason it feels good to give the idea is people ask. If people don't ask, it feels intrusive. If they do ask, it feels good. Yes, we like that. There was no judging. No judging. If I would have allowed you to judge or critique comments, you would have spent twice as much time debating the value of the comments as you would have spent listening to the comments. How much do we learn proving other people are wrong? Nothing. How much do we learn defending that we are right? Nothing. How much of our lives have been wasted on one of these two activities? Too much. Too much. Thank you. We also liked that everyone had different ideas that were very different from each other. Different ideas and a lot of misconception of coaching. Again, I have to know you to help you some. Sometimes we learn more from people who have very diverse and different ideas. Maybe we hadn't even met. Thank you. Kay. Yes.

We were more open with each other.

Than if we were family. Yeah. Now, I am going to ask you to practice this at home, but we'll get to that later. Okay? And finally we got something unexpected, but it's wonderful and it's good. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Let's hear it for all these good people. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, two misconceptions of coaching. Misconception 1 I've talked to is I have to have a deep knowledge view to help you. Wrong. Misconception two is worse. I have to somehow be better than you to help you. Wrong again. Better off not trying to be superior to the other person. Better off just being a fellow human stumbling around without clear answers to the following questions, unless it is on your search engine, such as who am I, where are we? And what is going on here? Well, that's all we are anyway. We're not little gods. We're just little confused people stumbling around. Much better to be that. How many of you, near the end of the exercise, began to feel the need to say to at least one person in this room. I have your problem, too. I have your problem, too. I have your. How different were everybody else's problems and yours problems? What's amazing, I do this all around the world. I was in Saudi Arabia last month. 500 guys in long white outfits. Their culture is different. This exercise, it's all the same. At the human dimension. I travel all around the world. It doesn't matter. The human dimension. We are amazingly similar. And by the way, did any of you, near the end of the exercise, begin to hear a faint voice? A little voice? A little voice speaking in the back of your head. A little voice going, excuse me, excuse me. You know the ideas you're giving the other people? Why don't you do any of them yourself? Some of you heard the little voice. Well, I don't have to be superior to you to help you. Better off just being a regular old human like everybody else is. Now, this exercise is going to be the essence of how I teach you all to do coaching. And we're going to practice now. You now have 10 seconds to find a partner. Do your marks.

Get set.

Find one partner. Go, go, go, go. Find a partner. Find a partner. Find a partner. Okay, good. Does everyone have a partner? Get a partner. One partner per person. All right, now we're going to practice peer coaching. How does peer coaching work? You're going to look at your partner and you're going to say, partner. Here's what I said I wanted to get better at. Here's some interesting things I learned. Here's what I'm going to try to do to get better. Please give me ideas to make sure when I get back in the real world, I actually execute, actually do this stuff. He's going to give you ideas. What if he gives you the stupidest idea in the whole world? What do you say to him? Thank you, thank you, thank you. Then you switch roles. He says, here's what I said I wanted to get better at. Here's some things I learned. Give me ideas to help me execute. What do you say? Thank you. Thank you. See, the problem with all this training stuff is not theory. It's execution. We all know what to do. We just don't do it. When my book was the number one ranked business book in the entire United States, the number one ranked diet book sold 10 times as many copies. Americans get fatter and fatter and fatter and read more and more diet books. Nobody loses weight by reading diet books. You got to go on a diet. Now, I made one mistake with my book. I love the Title of my book, what got you here won't get you there. You know what I should have called it what got you here won't get you there Diet. Then I would have really sold a lot of coffee. So the trick to this is now you're going to help each other. You understand the exercise? Two and a half minutes each. You do two and a half minutes. Switch rolls. Two and a half minutes. To your marks. Get set. Talk to your partners. Go, go, go, go, go, go. What do you want to get better at? I want to be able to concentrate on one thing at a time. It. Hello. Two more minutes. Two more minutes. Okay, stop, stop. And say thank you to your partner. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, developing yourself as a leader and partner. Let's talk about how you use all this good stuff to develop yourself as a leader and a partner. The first thing is get in the habit of asking. Asking, how can I do better? Let's pretend you're my customer. Your name is Noel. Noel, I say shake hands. Noel, I say you are my customer. My job is to serve you. Your job is not to serve me. How can I serve you? Better listener. Ideas, Take notes, follow up. What happens to your opinion of me as a supplier? Worse or better? Guess better. First name is Jerry. Shake hands. Jerry. I say Jerry. You're my team member. I want to be a better team player. How can I help the team? Listen to Jerry's ideas, take notes, follow up. What happened to his opinion of me as a team player? Worse or better Gets better. Yeah. Shake hands. Evan, you're my direct report. I want to be a better manager. How can I help you in the state? Listen to his ideas, take notes, follow up. What happens is paying me as a manager. Up, up, up, up, up, up. It gets better. Not a theory, a fact. I've got research from thousands of people. I'm going to share. Everything gets better. We don't ask. My friend Jim Kuzis, who lives very near here, did a leadership challenge profile. 70,000 people evaluating their bosses. What item came in dead last? Tim? Employee satisfaction. Asked for input about how he or she can improve. We don't ask. We just preach about asking till it applies. To who? Us. Yes. How do we know how much to ask? The odds on most of us asking too much are very remote. So the overcorrection fear is not usually a big challenge. Let me give you one example. I'm going to point it out right now. Not just at work, at home. I'm going to ask all of you Two questions. If your answer is yes and yes, raise your hands. How many of you are in a business where customer satisfaction is critically important, where people should ask their customers for input? Listen to this. Good customer input. Follow up and try to get better. Raise your hands. Many of you. Very nice. And then how many of you have a partner or significant other at home? Raise your hands. Okay. Raise your hands. Let's see. I like you, you, and you. You three fine gentlemen, come on down here at the front. Come on down. Come on down. Let's hear it for these three guys. Give them a hand. Yay. Come on down. Come on. I want all of you to stare intently at their faces. Are you in a business where customer satisfaction is important? How important is it? Extremely. Should people ask those customers for input? Listen to that. Good customer input. Follow up and try to get better based on what they learn? Yes, of course. And how important is this? Very important. Extremely important. Extremely important. Outrageously. Outrageously. And by the way, they're not competitive. Very. Extremely. Outrageously. Do you have a partner, significant other at home? Yes. Yes. Yes. Have you spent a lot of time asking that person, what can I do to be a better partner in our relationship? Is that a commonly asked question? No, no, no. That means almost never, doesn't it? Yes, it's. No, no, no. Weekly. Oh, yeah, right. Liar. Liar. Now, wait a minute. Now look at their faces. Did you notice a certain cutback on enthusiasm here? Who's more important, those people at work or that person you live with? The person I live with, of course. You're lucky the person you live with is not in the audience. Right. Who's more important? Family. But you haven't been asking. Let's hear for these three guys. Go sit down. Go sit down. Now. Talk to your partner. Talk to your partner. We don't ask at work and we really don't ask at home. Why don't we ask? Talk to your partner. Go. Why don't we ask? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. Why don't we ask. Stop. Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop. Shh. Stop. Why don't we ask? Yes, why don't we ask? We take them for granted. Often the people we take for granted the most are those we should take for granted the least. Very good. Why don't we ask? Why don't we ask? Yes. We don't want to hear it. Yes. We're told. We're. Oh, oh, oh. We're told. Now let's see. You're bringing up that other person's problems here. Aren't you. I didn't know this program was to fix other people. No, I thought you were supposed to be trying to fix. Fix me here. Yeah, let's don't deal with their problems. Why don't we ask? What is the big reason we don't ask. Deep down inside, you know why we don't ask. We're afraid to ask. We don't ask because we're afraid of the answers. Let me give you a personal example. I am 58 years old. @ my age, one type of input I ought to get every year is called a physical exam. I managed to avoid that seven years. How did I successfully avoid a physical exam for seven years? What I tell myself, I'll get that exam after I begin my healthy foods diet. I'm going to get that exam after I go and begin my exercise program. How many people in this room have ever avoided a physical exam and told yourself the same thing? Come on, come on, raise your hand. Look at these hands. Did we trick the doctor? No. How about the trip to the dentist? Have any of you noticed a flurry of dental flossing activity? The two days before you walk into that dentist's office, you're flossing away. You have blood running all out of your mouth. You sit down, the dentist says, have you been flossing? What do we say? Oh, yeah, I was flossing. Many of you appear to be mature adults. How many times has a dentist heard this lie? Thousands. We don't ask because we're afraid. Have the courage to ask. Now you're going to ask at work. How can I be a better manager? How can I be a better partner? How can I be a better team member? Now back to your point about asking too much. You don't want to promise to do everything people suggest. All you want to promise to do is listen, to think about their ideas. Leadership isn't a popularity contest. You can't always do everything people suggest. But you know what you can do? You can listen and you can say, I'm going to think about what you're telling me. I want to hear what you have to say. I'm going to do what I can. That's all you should do. Don't promise to do. Just listen. Now we're going to start asking at work and at home. We're going to have a contest. Youngest kid contest. Does anyone in the room have a child 18 years old or younger? 4 or younger? 2 or younger? Little one. 112 months or younger? How old? Any younger than 6 months? Where? How.

Much? 2 and a half.

Months? 2 and a half. Any younger than 2 and a half months? Let's hear it for Evan, the youngest child winner. Yay. What's your little child? What's your child's.

Name?

Dylan. Little Dylan. Little girl, right? Are you listening closely? I'm trying because years from today you're going to look back on this moment and you know what you're going to say. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you. In fact, years from today, someone's in this room, not even in this room is going to say thank you. Who am I talking about? Little Dylan, you are listening closely. How many of us have adult or grown up children raise our hands? Too late. Okay, moving on. We can do this with our grandchildren. Now. What does this have to do with little children? I started doing this when my daughter Kelly was 11 and my son Brian was nine. I'm happy I did. I wish I'd done it when they were even smaller. When my daughter was 11 and my son was 9, I began asking my children a question. What can I do to be a better parent? What's that? That's my daughter. What can I do? If it's worth while to say what can I do to be a better boss or what can I do to be a better team member? What's more important, what can I do to be a better parent? Problem asking these questions is we get answers. By the way, have any of you ever seen the TV show Survivor? My daughter was on Survivor. She was on Survivor of Africa. She never really needed to go to the assertive training program. So my daughter's 11 and she looked at me and she said, daddy, you travel a lot. She said, that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is the way you act when you come home. Talk on the telephone, you watch the sports, you don't spend much time with me. And she said one time it was Saturday and I wanted to go to party at my friend's house and mommy didn't let me go to the party. I had to stay home and spend time with you. You'd been gone for two weeks, then you didn't spend any time with me. That wasn't right. What could I say? Thank you. I said, daddy's going to do better. I'm very proud of this. I said, I'm going to keep track of how many days I could spend four hours with my family. Four hours is too many for you. Make it three. Three is too many. Make it two. Two is too many. Make it one. How much time does the average American father spend a meaningful dialogue with the average American child in a week. Seven to 15 minutes. It's not hard to beat average. I said, daddy's going to do better. 1991, 92 days. 1992, 110. 1993, 131, 1994, 135. I made more money the year I spent 135 days, four hours with my family. And the year I spent 20. You know what I learned? The San Diego Chargers don't care about me. It took me a while to figure this out. Now it's January 1st, 1995. Daddy's so proud. I got my charts. I said, kids, look. Degree in math. You can see this, right? Kids, look. Look at this. 135 days. What goal this year, kids? How about 150 days? They both said, no, Daddy, you have overachieved. My son said, 50 is a much better target. They both voted for massive cutback of Daddy. I learned a good lesson. When they're little, it's good to do this. Why? They need us. They get older, we need them. Another good place to do this. I was just over at the Oakland Coliseum about a year ago teaching a class for the Kaiser Permanente Company. Thousand people in the room. A woman stands up and told a story. I always tell a story. Every class since she did this. She said, there is one thing you have always left out. You've never taught this. I've been to your website. I've read everything you've written. I've been to your class twice. You've always left this out. You should teach it. Teach people to do this with your parents. Do any of you have mom or dad that's still alive? Get on the phone and say, what can I do to be a better daughter? What can I do to be a better son? Well, she did that with her mother. She said, what can I do to be a better daughter? Her mother said, I live out in the country. Dad's dead. Every day I got to walk up this long road to get to the mailbox almost every day. There's nothing in the mailbox every day that makes me lonely. She said, it would mean so much to me if you just send me little pictures or cards or something. So I go to the mailbox. There's something in the mailbox. She started sending her mother little pictures and cards. What did that mean to her mother? Everything. What'd it cost her? Nothing. Nothing. This is good to do with our parents for three reasons. One, it's good for them, even if they Say there's nothing you can improve. They'll be happy to ask. Number two, it's good for you. What's the number one regret kids have when mom and dad die? Why didn't I thank him for all he did to help me? And number three, if you have kids, it's good for your kid. You know that old person you're calling on the phone, Guess what? You're going to be that old person. You want somebody calling you on the phone. The kid is not listening to what you say. Kids watching what you do. So this stuff is very good to do at work, Even better at home. Get in the habit of asking for input, listening to it, thinking about it. Thank people, don't punish them and then respond. Now all of you get something called 360 degree feedback. Is that correct? I thought I heard this. I'm going to teach you now how to respond to feedback. This is what I teach all my executives. The rest of your life. If you ever get 360 feedback, just do this. Four guidelines. Positive, simple, focused, and fast. How do you respond to feedback? It sounds like this. Shake hands. I'd say, Mr. Coworker, shake hands. I'd say, I just got this 360 degree feedback. I'd like to talk to everybody one on one about what I learned. First thing I'd like to say is, overall, my feedback is very positive, ethical, dedicated, hard working, caring about our company, our customers, creative, getting results, trying to do what's right. These are important values to me. I'd hope they might score high, and they did. I want to say how grateful I am for the positive feedback. Second, just thanks to everybody who took the time to say anything to me. I know how busy you are. Appreciate you taking the time to help me. Then don't say, but say. And there's something I'd like to do better. And by the way, my advice for all of you, pick one. I used to teach this stuff and I said, pick one to three. What do I say now? Pick one. One gentleman said, I love the pick one idea. I asked him why. He said, if you told me I could work on three things, I'd spend all my time on number three. I never have to face number one. Tell me I can work on one thing. It's hard to hide from. Just pick one. That's enough. I'd say, you know, there's something I'd like to do better. In the past, I've come off as stubborn, opinionated, know it all, always trying to be right, not an open Minded listener. If I've done that to you or the people around you, I'm sorry. Please accept my apologies. No excuse. We all screw up, it's okay. What you do, make a mistake, apologize. And if we want to blame people for our mistakes, who is the best person in the world to blame for our mistakes? You want everybody else to take responsibility? You go first. Let them watch you take a little responsibility. In the next part you're going to like. Don't ask for more feedback about the past. Do any of you have direct reports? Have you noticed they do not like to give you negative feedback? Have any of you notice this? You know why they have not found it to be a career enhancing strategy. People don't like to give us negative feedback. Don't ask for it. I'd say I'm not going to ask you for feedback about the past. I can't change it anyway. I'm going to ask you for ideas for the future. Had to have ideas to be a positive, more open minded listener. What would they be? Whatever he says, sit there, shut up, listen, take notes and say thank you. Never promise to do everything people suggest. Leadership is not a popularity contest. I'd say I can't promise to do everything you and everybody suggests. I'm going to listen and think about your ideas. Do what I can. Can't change the past. I can change the future. I can't get better at everything. I can get better at one thing. I'm going to involve you and ask you to help me get better. What do you do then? Change. And the key to making everything work I teach is called follow up. What's it sound like? Last month I said I wanted to be a more open minded listener based on my behavior Last month he had to have an idea to tell me next month what it would be. Two months? Three months? What happens if you do the stuff I teach? Summarized in a research study on the website. It's called Leadership as a contact sport. 86,000 people, 8 major corporations, 12,000 outside the US 8 corporations in totally different industries made absolutely no difference. Commonalities. Every leader got multirator feedback. It was all shared with a consultant. They were asked to pick one to three areas of improvement. Do what we just discussed described. What did we learn? The people that got feedback didn't talk to people, didn't follow up, went to a course. Their improvement looks like random chance. Do any of you know about probability and statistics? Well this looks slightly better than a random distribution curve on a minus three to plus three scale. I've done a control group study. No training, no feedback, no nothing. The control group did this. Well, might as well have been watching sitcoms. Useless. Little follow up. A little better. Some follow up, lots better. Frequent follow up. Much better. And finally consistent or periodic follow up. Massive improvement. They all went to the same program. It was all taught by the same person. Me. They had feedback on the same process. You know what I learned? If you get better, don't have much to do with me. It's got whole lots to do with you. This stuff works. It just don't work if you don't do it. Let me give you an analogy. Any of you have been planning to work out how many people planning to begin a workout program? Raise your hand. Workout planners. How long you been planning to do this? Give me a number. Forever. Years. How about you? How long you been planning? You are working. Who's planning to work out? How long you been planning this? Give me a number. How much? One year. And your first name is? Irv. And your name is? Ok. Ok. See, you need to talk to him. You only have one year of workout plan planning experience. He has over 10 years of workout planning experience. I think how much better his plan is than yours. Well, the problem's not planning the workout or understanding the theory of working out is doing it. You do this stuff, it works. It don't work if you don't do it. Now what have we learned? Let me summarize. Follow up works. What doesn't work? As an American, one of the worst elements of the United States culture we have transported around the world. The program of the year syndrome. Americans love buzzwords. We don't have customer satisfaction. No. We call it customer delight. We have a learning organization. We're empowering people, transforming leaders. Americans love to come up with silly words, put them up on walls, hop up and down. Next year they change the words and do it again. Nobody gets better because of pep rallies, slogans or buzzwords. If you want to get better, what works? Figure out what you want to be. Find some people you respect. Find out if you're doing it. Pick one thing to improve. Talk to people. People. Follow up, stick with it and get better. Now I'm going to finish with my favorite coaching exercise in the whole world. This is the best coaching exercise you will ever experience in this or perhaps any other lifetime. This is it. You're going to learn something now that's very important. You're going to listen to a very wise person talk to you. Whatever this person tells you, all you got to remember Is do that. Is everybody ready? Take a deep breath. Take a deeper breath. I want you to imagine that you are 95 years old. You're just getting ready to die. You're on that deathbed. Here comes your last breath. But right before you take that breath, you're given a beautiful gift. The ability to go back in time. The ability to go back in time and talk to the person in this room. The ability to help this person be a better professional. Much more important, the ability to help this person have a better life. What advice would the wise 95 year old you, who knows what was really important and what was not important and what matters and what don't matter and what counts and what don't really count. What advice would that wise old person have for the you that's sitting in this room? You don't have to say anything or write anything or do anything in your mind. I just want you to answer two questions. Number one, professional advice. That old person wants you to be a great professional, a great leader. What professional advice would that person have? Number two, personal advice. That old person wants you to have a great life. Whatever you're thinking now, do that. Terms of performance appraisals, that's the only one that counts. A friend of mine interviewed a bunch of old people who were dying. Got to ask them this question. What advice would you have? Three themes come up in the answers from old people facing death. Theme number one could be summarized in three words. Be happy now. Not next week, not next month, not next year. Be happy now. The great western disease we are spreading around the world. I'll be happy when, when I get that BMW, when I get that car, when I get that status. We all get the same win. People in this room are among the luckiest people in the history of the world. Don't get so wrapped up looking at what you don't have that you miss that what you do have. Learning point number two, stare around the room. Look at everyone's face around the room. Learning point number two is called friends and family. I'm going to help you. When you're 95 years old and you're looking around that deathbed, ain't no Google employees waving goodbye. You start to realize these friends and family, they're a little important. They're the only ones seem to be here today. And learning point three, if you have a dream, go for it. And many of you have done this. If you don't go for it when you you're 35, you may not. When you're 75 or 85 doesn't even have to be a big dream. Maybe little one. Go to New Zealand, speak Spanish. Other people may think you're goofy. Who cares? It's not their dream, it's yours. Business advice isn't much different. Number one, have fun. Life is short. Have a good time. If you don't love what you're doing, you're in the wrong place. You're in the wrong place. Have fun. It's hard to make those other people enthusiastic if we aren't. By the way, I've asked thousands of parents this question. When my child grows up, I want my child to be. There's one word that comes from parents more than every other word in the world put together. What's that one word? Happy. You want your child to be happy? You want the young people that work here to be happy? You go first. Let them let you be happy. Learning point number two is people. Take the time to help people any way you can or coach people. The most important reason to do this has nothing to do with with money. Most important reason is a 95 year old. Be proud of you because you did. Be disappointed if you don't. And if you don't believe this is true. Interview any CEO who has retired. And I've interviewed very many and asked them one question. What are you proud of? Nobody told me how big their office was. All they talk about is people. And the final advice is also the same. Go for it. The world is changing. Your industry is changing. Do what you think is right. May not win. Alicia, go look in the mirror and say, ah, what the heck. At least I tried. Final thing I'd like to say is I had a wonderful time working with everybody. I'm going to stick around as long as anybody would like to answer questions. Everybody else can take off. I hope you have found this useful and help your life be a little bit better. Thank.

You. Thank you Marshall. A couple other people to thank and if anybody of your coworkers or friends or I guess people at Google would like to see this for now it's going to be posted internally in a couple days and then it will be on YouTube available to everybody. Thanks to Marshall. So you can have anybody watch this couple. Thank yous to mang for helping us set up this new Oogle series. The whole Oogle team, Josh Mendelsohn to Claire and members of the learning and leadership development team. Thank you all for your help in setting up this series and thanks to all of you for coming. Thanks Marshall.