Marshall Goldsmith is a coach paid for sparking a lasting change in a person’s behavior. In writing the book he wants to explain how people are oblivious victims of their environment. He is pragmatic and brings many examples of managers he coached (and saved from getting fired). A trigger is something, coming from the current environment, that influences our behaviour. The main point is that we often live situations where we cannot control external stimuli and, on the contrary, we must live with those. Thus, the only option left is to control our reactions to those. On the other side, not every stimulus must be bad, many can lead us to better behaviour and kindness. Anyway, we usually completely ignore how much the environment influences our behaviour.
The books starts with two immutable truths. They look obvious, but the more I think about them, the more I find important consequences in every social context:
Truth 1: It is difficult to have a significant change in behaviour.
Truth 2: Nothing can make us change if we do not want it.
A thirt truth follows, but it looks more like a sad observation: each of us is an excellent manager and a bad doer (this is the reason for which we are not the person we wish to be, the book explains). We tell ourselves we will go to bed early and that our diet starts today, as changing was all about having a sudden enlightment; then at three a.m. we are devouring a chocolate cake for restoring energies after choosing karaoke over promises. (This last example is totally mine).
Marshall describes the steps he takes with his clients, after figuring out if those clients are really willing to change. Apparently, his method works on truth 1, because truth 2 requires a real social threat – change or get fired.
Step one: Decide an objective w.r.t. four point of views: Create new roads; Remove what does not work (and we are not willing to admit); Accept what cannot be changed; and Preserve what works.
Step two: choose an active form when formulating questions to yourself. A passive question is the following: “Did I have a good day?”. In this way we have room for blaming others for not having a good day. The same question in active form is the following “Did I make an effort to have a good day?”. Stated this way we ask the question to ourselves (only) and to our responsibility, making obvious those selfish ways to find excuses.
Step three:write down the questions as objectives and track them daily, daily, giving a 1 to 10 mark.
Active questions remember us what to do and create a focus, splitting it in parts small enough to pass through our ego. Marshall cites an example of a girl who wants to lose weight, but her family members are skepticals. This is probably one of the most tough changes to do in an ostile environment. More than that, the girl does not have previous success stories, because, Marshall says, people used to success face personal changes with more easiness.
Marshall explains that his system works very well and that his best clients reached their objectives and then, excited by their success, followed with other changes. In doing this, they got better in the process of change and they also got faster in it. They became coaches of themselves. Marshall says that everyone should put effort in being a better person, by asking ourselves if, in each moment, we are making a positive impact to what is happening at the moment. He wants to make us into a positive stimulus in our environment. Or maybe just being less negative, I suppose.
The third part of the book collects other aspects, in no particular order. Marshall underlines the importance of finding a structure for our days and living with point of references. As example, he cites surgeons who wash their hands before each operation and the fact that often is just our ego who denies us to embrace rules that would clearly make us happier. Then Marshall talks about Ego depletion, a mental fatigue that we have after a day filled with meetings and decisions. Ego depletion weakens our self-control and encourages bad behaviour. It is our ego that absolves ourselves from our sins and that makes us point to finger to something else but the only actual thing we really can change, ourselves.
In conclusion, a personal comment. The book’s material is not well organized. But it is direct and clear, with many examples and practical suggestions. What stroke me is the huge amount of Buddhism and Stoicism behind everything stated by the author, applied to problems that are very real and practical. Marshall does not joke, even if he looks like an easy-going fellow, he can hit your ego like a black belt of martial arts, who repeated the same move under a cold waterfall for more than thirty years.