Purposeful Growth

Winning every human interaction can actually limit success. Know when to win, when not, and how to know the difference.

An excellent starting point for anyone intent on personal development and growth is to begin by improving interpersonal skills. Good interpersonal relationships are critical to personal success. Successful people are used to winning some competitions. But over-use of the skill of winning can be a behavioral flaw.

The Need to Win:

The need to win all debates and to prevail in all discussions is a frequent interpersonal flaw that damages relationships at home and at work. The saying, “To win at the game of love don’t

keep score,” is true not only in love, but in all interpersonal relationships.It’s ironic that the ability to win, which got us to where we are now, may be the very factor that limits future growth.

Winning Isn’t Always Important:

It’s important to recognize what’s at stake. If your company is pitted against another for an important contract, you certainly want to do everything you can legally and morally do to contribute to your company’s win. Your company’s survival and your income may be at stake.

But if you and your friend are teamed against your spouses in a friendly bridge game, are the stakes just as high? Why play as if they are? Playing to win in all activities comes at a price.

The Cost:

The need to win in all situations can be costly, whether among co-workers discussing the home team’s loss over the weekend or with a customer with a preference for the other political party. If co-workers become alienated and withhold cooperation or vital information, your business success may be affected. Winning a pointless discussion with your customer could cost you a sale.

Winning at all costs and in all situations is a serious interpersonal relations mistake. At stake are your relationships with loved ones and business partners, and the cooperation and support you’ll need for the future.

How Can You Tell if You Have This Bad Interpersonal Habit?:

It’s difficult to recognize this habit in oneself, but there are hints if you’re aware.

• Do people often roll their eyes and concede to your opinion?
• Do people involved in a hearty discussion suddenly fall silent when you arrive on the scene?
• Do people avoid volunteering solutions to problems in your presence?

These may be hints that you have the habit of dominating conversations and striving to win, even in friendly discussions.

What You Can Do:

You can break the habit of needing to win by following these steps.

1. Reflect on what it’s costing you
2. Decide to change
3. Apologize to those you’ve affected, and
4. Ask for them for helpful suggestions
5. Be aware of your need to win during discussions, and
6. Enlist someone’s assistance to call it to your attention
7. Measure your progress by asking and watching the signs

Marshall Goldsmith, in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, calls the need to win the number one interpersonal behavior flaw likely to limit CEO’s success. This flaw can be affecting your success, too.

This article first appeared in the Personal Development Topic at Suite101.com.

A book to teach high level executives how to climb further up the ladder is also a primer for each of us in how to improve our interpersonal relationships.

Marshall Goldsmith’s What Got You Here Won’t Get You There addresses twenty interpersonal behavioral flaws that limit the success of the executives he coaches. In working with

high level, successful executives, Goldsmith’s coaching involves identifying and correcting the interpersonal weaknesses that limit further success. It turns out this book is a wonderful compendium of personal growth tips.What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, at first might seem to be a book to boost Goldsmith’s image and reputation as a highly successful, well-paid executive coach. In reality it is a treasure of personal development ideas for each of us.

If you can get past the tiresome references to how much Goldsmith is paid to coach executives who earn staggering levels of compensation themselves, you’ll find twenty behavioral flaws that limit the personal development and growth of all human beings.

It’s a shame Goldsmith addressed his message primarily to executives, for there is something here for everyone working to be a better person. Reading his list of twenty behavioral flaws, I found myself identifying with far more than I want to admit.

His work with thousands of executives provides Goldsmith with a wealth of information and experience about the personal development process. He demonstrates the insight and intelligence to understand just what we can do to improve ourselves in critical interpersonal areas.

His processes for identifying and correcting interpersonal flaws are straightforward, common sense, yet brilliantly to the point. For example, to identify the limiting factors in our relationships with others, whether at home or in the boardroom, ask. Ask those we interact with on a regular basis. Before you write this off as simply common sense, how many times have each of us tried to solve an interpersonal problem without involving the other party?

The first step he requires of someone working to improve might surprise you: Apologize.

Apologize to those who have been hurt, shortchanged, or limited in any way by your interpersonal flaws. Brilliant. Effective. Humbling. Goldsmith says, “…I regard apologizing as the most magical, healing, restorative gesture human beings can make.”

For those of us on a journey of purposeful personal development and growth, Goldsmith’s book is a golden opportunity to identify blind spots in our relationships and flaws in our daily behaviors.

Pick up a copy of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, prepare yourself to overlook the emphasis on executives (unless you are one) and on six and seven figure earnings (unless you earn them, too), and start eliminating the behavioral flaws that are keeping you from reaching the next level in your personal growth and development.

This article first appeared in the Personal Development Topic at Suite101.com.