yet with my coaching tools and skills and mindsets at the ready, miracles do happen! My clients shift longstanding patterns of self-sabotage. They adopt and maintain positive new behaviors that help them achieve their ambitions and aspirations.
Words cannot describe how meaningful, how satisfying, and how joyful this work is. You just have to experience it for yourself.
What I can put in words, however, is how absolutely possible it is. Yes, you CAN change other people. I do it all the time. So do Peter and Howie.
And the book you're holding in your hands right now will give you everything you need to master the process.
Because it is a process. It's methodical, not magical or manipulative. It doesn't take any particular personality trait other than a sincere desire to help and the humility and discipline to learn something new and practice it diligently.
In fact, the principles in this book underpin what I and other top coaches do to help our successful clients get even better. What Peter and Howie have done in these pages makes what we do accessible to you, to use at work, at home, and anywhere you want to help those you care about achieve their potential. They've taken what most people consider to be a frustrating, ambiguous process and formulated the four key steps to change—for both yourself and others.
Working with Peter for many years, it's been our business to change other people's behaviors in ways that get noticed by the people around them. I have been ranked as the #1 executive coach in the world for many years, and Peter is my successor to that title. His expert knowledge is evident from the way he's laid out the methodology for leading people to change without throwing up those usual blocks of frustration and resentment. These steps guide you to be the kind of leader who encourages and builds their team to get the best results from them, empowering these individuals to grow and improve.
Read on and learn how to become a better leader, partner, parent, and friend today. You can start having the same impact on your world as the most sought-after coaches have in theirs.
Life is good.
—Marshall Goldsmith
New York Times #1 Bestselling Author of Triggers, Mojo, and What Got You Here Won't Get You There
CHAPTER 1 WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO CHANGE OTHER PEOPLE: BRIAN'S $170,000,000 TURNAROUND
When my client Brian Gaffney stepped into the role of CEO of Allianz Global Distributors, a financial services company with over $90 billion in assets, the company was losing $30 million a year. Not only was Allianz struggling, but the entire industry was in turmoil (many other asset management companies were closing their doors) and morale was low.
“My team is made up of incredibly talented people,” Brian told me a short while after assuming the role. “But most of them have issues that are getting in the way of their effectiveness. One is rubbing people the wrong way by clumsy communications. Another isn't being clear with direct reports and isn't managing people effectively. A third needs to be more proactive; he isn't having hard conversations that need to happen. A fourth is brilliant but sloppy, and several people are commenting on the risk to his credibility.”
So we went to work. And under Brian's leadership, a declining company made a complete turnaround. In the period that we worked together, he turned that $30 million loss into an annual profit of $140 million.
Here's what's really important about this story: Brian's turnaround at Allianz happened with the same leadership team that had been losing $30 million a year.
In other words, in a few short years, under Brian's leadership, the same people who were struggling with all those issues—the people who were leading the company to a damaging, unsustainable loss—changed.
And it was Brian who helped them change. By doing and saying specific things. Things that moved strong-willed individuals in positive, productive ways. Things that had a business-saving impact on revenue and profitability.
What Brian did was not magic. Neither was it the product of Brian's charisma or powers of persuasion. It was straightforward, methodical, and replicable. And you can do it too, in your world.
What you need is a process.
CAN YOU REALLY CHANGE OTHER PEOPLE?
You can't change other people; you can only change yourself. It's a truism.
Only it's not true.
I1 know this—with 100 percent certainty—because it's my job to change other people. As an executive coach for CEOs and senior leaders in organizations of all sizes, my success depends on it.
Helping others change and improve when it's hard and when they may not want to (at first) can look and feel like magic, but it's not. It's a skill—a set of repeatable steps—that I've studied, developed, and honed over 30 years of practice. And it's teachable because I've taught it to people who have become some of the best coaches in the world.
By the time you finish this book, you'll have that skill too, which is important, because we all need the skill. No matter your role at work and in life, your success is dependent, at least in part, on the success of those around you. In many situations, it would be great for you if people changed for the better.
Just about all of the time, though, it would be better for them too: an employee who's more capable than they realize, who could be taking on bigger projects. A bright colleague who, if only they spoke up and shared their perspective, could have a positive impact on the team and, consequently, their success in the company. A boss whose visionary strategy would finally get traction if they focused more, resisting the distraction of bright, shiny objects.
For many of us, helping people change is not just a nice-to-have skill; it's a requirement. If you're a leader or manager in an organization, it's your job to change others: to transform squabbling coworkers into a capable team. To turn excuse-makers into responsibility-takers. To help high-potential contributors overcome dysfunctional habits and achieve their potential.
Changing others is perhaps the most important capability a leader can develop.
And yet it's a capability that most people lack. We avoid difficult conversations or handle them in ways that make things worse. We generate resistance rather than change. We point out how we want people to improve, but we lack the skills to get them there. We try to help and end up doing their work for them, making them dependent on us, when we should be helping them grow their independent capability. When emotions run high, we can even damage those relationships.
We feel stuck between a rock and a hard place: caring too much to keep our mouths shut, yet regretting the ineffective and hurtful things we say.
If only there were a third option.
There is. In this book, I will show you exactly why what you've been doing hasn't been working, and I will teach you what to do instead.
I'll share my process, which I call the Four Steps. I have yet to find a more elegant, kind, and effective method for helping people make the changes they want and need to make in their work and their lives.
Rather
