Talk to What Got You Here Won't Get You There like its author wrote you back.
Get the ideas that fit your life — not generic summaries.
- Chat with the book
- Audiobook-style main ideas
- Adapts to your life and goals
- Helps you take action
What it argues
What Got You Here Won't Get You There is Marshall Goldsmith's counter-intuitive argument about career plateaus: the behaviors that drive early success in organizations actively work against you once you reach a senior level. Goldsmith, one of the most sought-after executive coaches in the world, writes from decades of coaching Fortune 500 executives and watching the same patterns derail otherwise brilliant people.
The book catalogs twenty habits that distinguish high-potential executives who plateau from those who keep growing — not habits of incompetence, but habits of success gone wrong. These include winning too much (needing to be right in every situation), adding too much value (compulsively improving others' ideas so they stop sharing), making exclamatory comments that pass for feedback, failing to give appropriate recognition, and not listening because the leader already knows the answer. None of these behaviors feel wrong from the inside — they feel like the confidence and decisiveness that got the person where they are.
What it gets right
- 1.
The habits that produce early career success often become liabilities at senior levels, where influence replaces execution and collaboration replaces individual performance.
- 2.
The twenty habits of successful people who plateau include needing to win every argument, adding unsolicited value to others' ideas, withholding recognition, and not listening because the answer seems obvious.
- 3.
Feedback about the past triggers defensiveness. Feedforward — input about what could change in the future — is more actionable and less threatening.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Marshall Goldsmith is an executive coach and author who has been ranked among the top executive coaches in the world by multiple professional publications. He holds a doctorate from UCLA and has coached hundreds of senior executives in Fortune 500 companies. His coaching methodology focuses on behavioral change and stakeholder engagement rather than insight or therapeutic exploration. In addition to What Got You Here Won't Get You There, he is the author of Triggers, Mojo, and Succession, and has co-edited several volumes on leadership coaching.
