20 Great Lessons For Project Managers From Marshall Goldsmith @coachgoldsmith #Books #BookReview

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith is a fantastic collection of 256 pages and is a bouquet of learning for Project Managers across the globe. The title itself says a lot. You cannot win each battle with the same strategy. Every battle has to be brainstormed so as to formulate a suitable strategy. Each project is a battle for a project manager. An off-shore project would require a different kind of strategy as compared to an in-shore project. A CRM project would be a different ball-game in comparison to a project related to ERP.
This wonderful book has multiple magical gems that can transform your life from a project manager to empowered project manager. There is a fantastic learning in whatever Marshall Goldsmith is trying to convey in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. It is simple to understand but slightly difficult to absorb and more difficult to adhere to. By the time you are able to adhere to these points, you are a totally transformed project manager who will look at everything with a different perspective. Marshall calls these gems as self-defeating factors which stop you from reaching next level in your profession while you have all those capabilities that are required to reach there. Why I call them gems is because these are the critical points to understand. And any learning that helps in delivering your best and is applicable everywhere in your life, throughout, is a gem.
Here are the 20 gems:
1. We emphasize more on learning how to DO things and forget to apply our learning on HOW, WHEN and WHERE to STOP. Once we are able to learn the STOP factor, it becomes easier to drive on a road that is not as smooth as a super-highway. And we all know, no project runs smooth. Ability to harness accelerator, clutch and gears in sync is what is required in life.
2. We try our best to win at any cost under any situations and due to that forget to keep the focus on delivering the best. As per Marshall, it is not important to win in all situations. That learning is very crucial.
3. We focus more on self-importance and thus try to participate in everything that matters (or even does not matter). We tend to add too much value to everything even where it is not at all required. For every discussing being held, it is not important to add your point of view.
4. We tend to be judgemental all the times. Rating others are not our job and on top of it telling others to follow you and do the things in the way you want is really absurd.
5. We feel that real smartness is in being sarcastic while making comments which are not true. And then it becomes our habit to be like that at all places.
6. We tend to overuse words like – But, However, No etc. that silently but clearly declares that we are living in a world of our own with a feeling that everyone else except us is wrong.
7. We always tend to estimate how smart others think we are and how to project ourselves more than that to them. In this unending chase, the real momentum of the game is lost and things start moving in a wrong direction.
8. The balancing act is lost when you are angry. Getting angry is not wrong but getting out-of-control at that moment of time is wrong. When you speak, ensure not to use to appear angry as a tactics. And when you are really angry, don’t speak for a while till you cool down.
9. Even when someone else is accountable for a job that is not done, we tend to explain why it did not work.
10. Keeping information to self by thinking that sharing information will reveal you as a weak person or will take control out of your hands. Sharing information appears to us as giving an advantage to other which we tend to hold all the time.
11. Blaming situations (present or past) and people from the past for failures with a clear-cut intention of trying to keep yourself clean.
12. Intentionally or unintentionally staying away from recognizing others for their achievements.
13. Clinging to the past is not a good habit. One of my ex-boss used to tell me that to survive in a corporate world, one has to keep delivering something visible and in its best, every day. You just can’t sit on your laurels. The job that is done well is the past, think of the next best deliverables to go in a best possible way.
14) Playing favorites is another bad game that we play. At times, we might be doing it unintentionally or we are being driven by someone else to do it. In both the cases, it is wrong at our end. We need to realize it beforehand and then simply stay away from it.
15) We tend to refuse to express regret at the time it is required. In fact, we try to avoid it all the time and forever.
16) Not listening is not only a disrespect to others but also can be treated as a breach of trust that others are doing on you while talking to you. When someone is talking to us, we need to give our full intention. I have seen people intentionally expressing their urgency in some important email or some emergency phone call.
17) We fail to regret when it is out turn and also fail to express gratitude to others where it deserves.
18) A person who comes to us with a negative news generally becomes the victim of our harsh behavior even if he is just a messenger and has no fault in the negative that has happened.
19) Passing the buck in case something wrong has happened rather than owning it.
20) We give unnecessary importance to ourselves to a very high extent which is useless. 

Buy it from Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3oPQAGF

Buy it from Amazon.in https://amzn.to/3jpBo1P