than inviting resistance, the Four Steps generate ownership. Rather than fostering dependence, they create independent capability. Rather than strain the relationship between you and the person you're helping, the Four Steps grow and deepen your relationships.
The ability to help other people change, even when they've been stuck for years, and even when they don't believe they can, is a superpower. Up until now, this superpower has been an esoteric skill set, honed and used by some of the world's most effective coaches. In this book, I'm going to deconstruct that superpower so you can practice and master it.
Using the Four Steps, I helped one CEO of a high-tech company grow revenue from $350 million to over a billion as its stock price soared from $19 to $107. At another company, the senior team began working together, helping rather than criticizing each other, and their stock price tripled in a year. When leaders skillfully help each other—and the people around them—up their game, exceptional results follow.
When I teach the Four Steps to CEOs and their leadership teams, the positive results cascade throughout the organization, generating independently capable teams that perform at much higher levels than before. People work together better and accept more accountability. People own their mistakes and failures, set and achieve higher goals, and resist the temptation of behaviors that get in the way.
Over years of doing this work, I discovered something wonderful: The C-suite leaders I work with reported that not only are they more effective at their jobs, and not only are their employees stepping up and becoming leaders in their own right, but their personal lives are easier and more satisfying as well. They stopped fighting with, and micromanaging, their kids. They had more empowering conversations with their spouses. And they found themselves helping others dig out of ruts that were sometimes decades in the making.
My coauthor, Howie, in addition to his work with business clients, also uses the Four Steps to help people change destructive lifelong habits and regain their health. While doctors acknowledge that lifestyle can be as powerful as drugs and surgery, most don't offer this option to patients in the belief that they won't comply. Yet Howie's clients change their lifestyles all the time. One became a competitive triathlete, losing sixty pounds in the process. Another reversed his type 2 diabetes and reduced his blood pressure meds by 75 percent through dietary changes, daily exercise, and meditation practice. A third finally got off the binge/diet/binge cycle, for the first time in her life maintaining a healthy weight free “from the impending doom of relapse.”
Let's banish the pain that comes from trying to change others in frustrated, angry ways—complaining, attacking, and manipulating them to get them to act differently. Those tactics cause tremendous damage. They don't feel good to anyone involved. And they don't work.
The Four Steps do work. And they heal relationships as people become allies instead of enemies, choosing skillful support over clumsy, destructive criticism.
Once you begin using the Four Steps, your world will feel lighter. You'll be happier. The people around you will be happier. You'll all get more done.
I wrote this book because that's the world I want to live in. A world where we build ownership, capability, and courage all around us. Where, rather than lashing out as annoyed critics, we reach out as allies. A world where we help raise people up to be the best they can be. And where they make us better people in return.
I'm grateful that you're taking the time to read this book. Thank you.
A TOUR OF THE BOOK
Before you start using the Four Steps, it’s important to understand why they work, which I’ll cover in Part One.
PART ONE: A NEW WAY TO HELP PEOPLE (BECAUSE THE OLD WAYS DON’T WORK)
First, I'll debunk the myth that people resist change and explain why so many of our efforts to change others fail (Chapter 2).
Then I'll introduce you to the four powers that a person needs in order to change: ownership, independent capability, emotional courage, and future-proofing (Chapters 3–6).
If someone doesn't change, they are missing at least one of these powers.
And when you use the Four Steps to help someone change, what you're really doing is igniting these powers in them so they change themselves. In Part Two, I'll teach you to do just that.
PART TWO: THE FOUR STEPS
This is the practical “how-to” portion of the book. To illustrate the Four Steps, we'll follow one scenario all the way from the initial problem to a detailed plan of action. You'll listen in on the conversation at the beginning of each step. Then we'll debrief that step in the following chapters, exploring underlying principles, dos and don'ts, and exceptions.
Here's a brief description of each step:
Step 1: Shift from Critic to Ally (Chapters 7–13) This is the magic move. It gets you to the place where your conversation partner2 agrees to receive your help. You'll learn how to initiate conversations that help others change. Even better, you'll learn to recognize and capitalize on “silver platter” opportunities, times when people come to you already open to you helping them change—everyday opportunities that are easy to spot once you know what to look for. Start with this step and you'll move quickly past any potential resistance, well positioned as a trusted guide to help your partner change.
Step 2: Identify an Energizing Outcome (Chapters 14–17) This step shifts your partner from focusing on the problem to focusing on the outcome they want. It's a deceptively simple reorientation that moves people from frustration to excitement. For many years I didn't think this was such a big deal, but my clients tell me focusing on the desired outcome is not an obvious thing to do when they're mired in a difficult situation. It reliably gives them the right focus, exposing new and creative ways forward.
Step 3: Find the Hidden Opportunity (Chapters 18–22) In this step you return to the problem, but now you use it as an opportunity to achieve the outcome in a creative or unexpected way. Here's where you can help people change so that they not only get out of the mess they're in, but emerge at a whole new level of functioning.
Step 4: Create a Level-10 Plan (Chapters 23–27) In this final step you help your partner generate, refine, and commit to a specific action plan to achieve their energizing outcome. You're going for a “Level-10” plan, where they know exactly what they're going to do and are confident they can do it. This final step turns insight into action and intentions into impact.
Those are the Four Steps: Ally, Outcome, Opportunity, Plan. If you're into mnemonics, think of “Ally-OOP,” which, appropriately, sounds like the basketball
