Marshall-Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith

Having just finished What Got Your Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith, I was most thrilled with literally the last two pages of the book.

Here he reveal the reasons why your team will or won’t leave your organisation.  It is based on Marshall’s research project  of 120 companies around the world which was sponsored by Accenture.

The question was;

“If you stay in this company, why are you going to stay?”

The top three answers were:

1. “I am finding meaning and happiness now. The work is exciting and I love what I am doing.”
2. “I like the people. They are my friends. This feels like a team. It feels like a family. I could make more money with other people, but I don’t want to leave the people here.”
3. “I can follow my dreams. This organisation is giving me a chance to do what I really want to do in life.”

I believe that as a leader, if your team is happy, then your responsibilities are significantly easier.  If you care, if you listen and if you are devoted to helping and genuinely want your team members to succeed at their own goals, then organisational success will follow.

Bluewire team on the couch
2013’s Bluewire team

As founders of Bluewire, Toby and I have tried our best to hire motivated people who already exhibit our core values, and then ask them what they love to do and set goals with them, and finally get out of their way so they can do it!

In fact, we made the decision to move to Sydney so we could minimise our disruptions (we are well out of the way of the team in Brisbane). We fly back up for our monthly meetings and have weekly Skype conferences  and daily phone huddles so we are in synch with our team.

Time will tell if this is a good way to lead people but from my thorough research into leadership I am confident it will serve us well. And team happiness has been around 90% since 2009 according to Gallup 12 survey questions.

what got you here won't get you there bookWhat else I learnt in the book

In short, the book is about improving interpersonal relationships with already successful people.

My main take away is that the key to overcoming most interpersonal flaws is shutting your mouth and opening your ears.  As Marshall says, it’s embarrassingly simple, yet incredibly difficult.

In most situations, learn to say Thank You and politely leave it at that.

My personal mission from the book, is to be interested in others and listen!

Follow Marshall

On Twitter look out for @coachgoldsmith or visit Marshall’s website for a ton of free resources!


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core values, culture, marshall goldsmith


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  1. I’m no expert but Adam it’s damn hard to find the right people for a particular job. Maybe I’m a perfectionist, I remember when we had to hire a marketing mgr for our company we interviewed 40-50 people before choosing the one 😀 Still haven’t found the right editor though 🙁

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