The man The Economist calls “one of the most credible

thought leaders in the new era of business” describes

how to get – and keep – your Mojo.

Thought Leader Interview:

Marshall Goldsmith
by Karen Christensen

You believe that two things differentiate truly successful ships, what else differentiates successful people from others?
people from everyone else. What are they? Happiness and meaning. Truly successful people spend a great deal
I’ve led sessions where I have successful people talk about their of their lives engaging in activities that simultaneously a) make
lives, and five things tend to really matter to them: the first is them happy and b) provide meaning. The trick is, the activities
ILLUSTRATION BY COLIN BERGH

health, which of course is critically important; the second is that create these results are highly individual: no one else can
wealth, but that doesn’t matter as much as you might think. determine what is meaningful for you or what will make you
Studies show that after about $65,000 to $80,000 a year, there is happy. But together, they lead to something very powerful: Mojo.
zero correlation between wealth and happiness. Third is relation-
ships; it’s very important to have positive relationships in your life How do you define Mojo?
with people that you love. So assuming that you’re healthy, you The term has evolved to describe a sense of positive spirit and
have a middle-class income and you have good personal relation- momentum, especially in the shifting tides of business, politics or

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 The Four Ingredients of Great Mojo Measure Your Mojo

By understanding the impact and interaction of the following four Five qualities that we need to bring to an activity in order to do it
elements, you can begin to alter your own Mojo – both at work and well are; motivation, knowledge, ability, confidence and authenticity.
in your personal life. Likewise, five benefits we may receive from the activity after doing
it well are: happiness, reward, meaning, learning and gratitude.
1. Identity: Who do you think you are? Taking everyone else out of Think of a typical day in your life. Pick your important activities and
the equation, including the opinions of your spouse, family and closest rate yourself on each of the following questions on a scale of 1 to
friends, how do you perceive yourself? Without a firm handle on our 10; a perfect Mojo score would be 100. You can do this test after
identity, we may never be able to understand why we gain – or lose – a five minute phone call with a customer, a half-hour session to
our Mojo. return e-mails, or at the end of a long trip.

2. Achievement: What have you done lately? These are the accom- Professional Mojo: What I bring to this activity
plishments that have meaning and impact. If you’re a salesperson, it
might be landing a big account; if you’re a creative type, it could be 1. Motivation: You want to do a great job in this activity. If you are
coming up with a breakthrough idea. We often underrate or overrate just ‘going through the motions’, score yourself low.
our achievements based on how easy or hard they were to pull off; 2. Knowledge: You understand what to do and how to do it. If you are
until we can honestly put a value on what we’ve accomplished lately, unclear on processes or priorities, score yourself low.
we may not be able to create or regain our Mojo. 3. Ability: You have the skills needed to do the task well.
4. Confidence: You are sure of yourself when performing this activity.
3. Reputation: Who do other people think you are? What do other 5. Authenticity: You are genuine in your level of enthusiasm for
people think you’ve done lately? While identity and achievement are engaging in this activity. If you are faking it or being insincere,
definitions that you develop for yourself, your reputation is a score- your score will be low.
board kept by others: your co-workers, customers, friends. Although
you can’t take total control of your reputation, there’s a lot you can do Personal Mojo: What this activity brings to me
to maintain or improve it, which can have an enormous impact on your
Mojo. 6. Happiness: Being engaged in this activity makes you happy.
7. Reward: This activity provides material or emotional rewards that
4. Acceptance: What can you change, and what is beyond your con- are important to you.
trol? We must be realistic about what we can and cannot change in 8. Meaning: The results of this activity are meaningful for you. If you
our lives and accommodate ourselves to those facts. While this do not feel a sense of fulfillment or that you’re contributing to a
seems easier than creating an identity from scratch or rebuilding a greater good, your score would be low.
reputation, acceptance is often one of our greatest challenges. When 9. Learning: This activity helps you to learn and grow.
Mojo fades, the initial cause is often a failure to accept what is – and 10. Gratitude: Overall, you feel grateful for being able to do this
get on with life. activity and believe that it is a great use of your time.

SCORE out of 100:

sports. Mojo entails moving forward, making progress, achieving people I work with – not just at work, but also at home – is the
goals, clearing hurdles, passing the competition, and doing so discrepancy between how they feel on the inside and the way they
with increasing ease because what you are doing matters to you come across on the outside. Once we learn to ask for input and
and you enjoy doing it. Mojo plays a vital role in our pursuit of get feedback on how we are seen by others, we frequently realize
happiness and meaning, because it heralds the achievement of that a discrepancy exists. I teach my clients to take steps to close
two simple goals: loving what you do and showing it. People who the gap between the person they want to be and the person the
love what they do but never show it are doomed to be misunder- world sees on the outside. And I try to practice what I preach: in
stood; their Mojo and their careers will never reach their full my executive coaching practice, I don’t get paid if my clients don’t
potential. Likewise, people who hate what they’re doing but man- get better, and better is not judged by me or them – it’s judged by
age to convey a convincing positive spirit on the outside are everyone around them. So in essence, I only get paid if their rep-
phonies, and their lack of authenticity usually catches up with utation improves, and their reputation arises from what radiates
them in one way or another. The big challenge for many of the to the outside.

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The four key elements of Mojo are identity, achievement, repu- and be miserable (and probably assist others in being miserable,
tation and acceptance [see sidebar, page 12]. In your experi- too) and Option B is to make the meeting more meaningful and
ence, which area tends to need the most work? enjoyable in some way. You might be able to do this by observing
For most of the people I meet, it would probably be acceptance. I your colleagues more closely than usual, by asking a question
had the privilege of spending 50 days with the late-great Peter you’ve been dying to ask, or by generating a new idea. If you knew
Drucker, and he taught me a very valuable lesson: that every deci- that at the end of each meeting you were going to evaluate how
sion in life is made by the person who has the power to make that happy you were about it and how meaningful it was to you, my the-
decision. It is critical to make peace with this: it is not necessarily ory is that you would start acting quite differently. You’d be more
the smartest person, the best person or the right person, it’s the likely to make those meetings worthwhile, because that hour of
person with the power to make the decision who will make it. All your life will be gone, either way. By changing the way you usually
we can do is to treat that person with respect, change what we can approach things, you can ensure you don’t fall victim to inertia.
change about the situation and make peace with what we can’t
change. If you do this, not only will you become more effective, I The opposite of Mojo is ‘Nojo’ – which pretty much defines
predict that you will be happier. itself. How prevalent is this?
It is pervasive, and nowhere is the difference between the two
What is the Mojo Paradox? states more evident than in the service industry, especially when
Our default reaction in life is not to experience happiness or mean- you are confronted by two employees doing exactly the same job
ing: our default reaction is to experience inertia. That’s the Mojo at the same time. Let’s return to air travel for a minute: one of
Paradox. We all have a tendency to keep on doing what we’re the flight attendants on my last cross-country flight was upbeat
doing, and it is incredibly difficult to break these patterns. I’ll give and enthusiastic, while the other was negative, bitter and cynical.
you a simple example. I fly on airplanes constantly – I’ve surpassed Both the Mojo and the Nojo flight attendants were doing exact-
ten million frequent flyer miles on American Airlines, and after ly the same activity for the same company at the same salary for
all this time, my routine is very much set: I get off the plane; I walk the same customers, yet the message that each was sending to
into my hotel room and I turn on the TV. Often I come upon some the world couldn’t have been more different. What is the real net
silly made-for-TV movie, and if I’m not careful, two hours later I’m effect of such behaviour? The important part is not what shows
still sitting there, glued to it. Why, when I should be catching up on on the outside, it’s what’s happening on the inside. American
much-needed rest? Because I didn’t have the discipline to turn off Airlines may lose a little bit because of the negative employee’s
the TV. That’s plain old inertia in action. behaviour – maybe one passenger will vow to never fly them
again, or they’ll receive a couple of complaints; but chances are,
You advocate that we practice the Two-Question Discipline. I will fly them again regardless of the Nojo attendant’s behaviour,
Please describe it. because it’s convenient for me. The fact is, it’s not the company
For every activity that you undertake in life, you should ask your- that pays the price in the end, it is that flight attendant, because
self two questions: ‘How much short-term satisfaction or happi- this is her life, and she is miserable. My daughter Kelly
ness did I experience from this activity?’ and ‘How much long- Goldsmith – a professor at the Kellogg School of Management
term benefit or meaning did I experience from it?’ Imagine you – and I are working on a whole new approach to employee
have to go to a meeting – yet another stupid meeting with boring engagement where we focus on engagement as a responsibility of
PowerPoint slides. You really don’t want to go, but you have to. In the individual. Rather than saying, ‘I should do this because it
such instances, I advise people to remember that this is your life; if will make my company more money’, you should look at it as, ‘I
the meeting makes you feel miserable and empty, it’s your misery should do this because I’m going to have a happier and more
and emptiness. So try to make the best of the situation rather than meaningful life, and guess what – my company will be better
defaulting to the role of victim. Option A is to attend the meeting off, too’.

Rotman Magazine Spring 2011 / 13

We often tell people what they want to hear instead of what we
really think. How big a role do ‘undiscussables’ play in today’s That Negative Spirit Called Nojo
workplace?
I think it’s huge, and that’s why I’m a great believer in having peo-
MOJO NOJO
ple ask themselves a very simple question: How can I be a better
person? We don’t ask this nearly enough. In my classes, I ask, ‘Is Take Responsibility Play the Victim
customer satisfaction important?’ Of course, everyone says Yes; Move forward March in place
‘Should the company ask for customer input?’ Again, Yes; ‘Should Run the extra mile Satisfied with the bare minimum
we listen to our customers?’ Yes. Then I say, ‘Are you married?’ Love doing it Feel obligated to do it
Most say Yes. Then I ask ‘Do you ever ask your husband or wife, Appreciate opportunities Tolerate requirements
What can I do to be a better partner?’ Inevitably, the answer is No. Make the best of it Endure it
Inspirational Painful to be around
We don’t ask these questions in the workplace, and we don’t ask
Grateful Curious
them at home. Why? Because we’re afraid. One of the greatest Zest for Life Zombie-like
qualities of the best leaders I’ve met is that they have courage. It Awake Asleep
takes courage to ask, ‘How can I make things better for you?’
When you start asking these questions, undiscussables gradually
become discussable.

How can we get better at saying what we really think?

One tool I teach in my classes is ‘feed forward’, whereby you get
into the habit of asking people not for feedback about the past, but obvious to everyone, and our formerly-enjoyable job can become
for ideas for improvement in the future. That means saying things rote, our execution sloppy and halfhearted. We can all benefit from
like, ‘I want to become a better listener: please give me some ideas realizing that we can fall into this trap. Before replying with an
on how to do that.’ Then you have to sit there and listen, take notes enthusiastic ‘yes’ to that next request, think of the long-term
and at the end, say only two words: ‘Thank you’. One gentleman impact on your Mojo. Are you doing what is right for the long
participating in this exercise had a Nobel Prize, and he told me he term, or just saying what will make others happy in the short term?
listened better in this exercise than he ever had in his life. When I Is what you are about to commit to going to increase the happiness
asked why, he said, ‘Normally when other people speak, I’m so busy and meaning that you experience in life?
composing my next comment to prove how smart I am that I’m
not listening. It’s amazing how much better I listened when I knew How hard is it to get leaders to embrace the idea of saying No?
all I could say at the end was thank you’. By the way, I don’t suggest They tend to do it at first, but here’s an example of what often hap-
promising to do anything specific at the end of this exercise – all pens: at the end of a recent class I taught at Johnson & Johnson,
you should promise is to listen to the feed forward and vow to do participants were asked, ‘Are you going to do what Marshall taught
what you can going forward. We did a study called Leadership is a you?’ Ninety-eight per cent said ‘Yes!’ One year later, we checked in
Contact Sport with 86,000 participants that showed leaders who with them and found that 70 per cent had done something and 30
do this exercise almost invariably increased their effectiveness, not per cent had done absolutely nothing. When I asked them why, the
as judged by themselves, but by everyone around them. answer was always the same. People have this fantasy: ‘I’m so busy
right now; I’m totally over committed, but in just two or three
In the book you describe six ‘Mojo killers’. What is the most weeks, everything is going to calm down and I’ll be able to spend
common one? more time with my family and start my new healthy life program.’
For the busy, successful people I work with, one serious Mojo killer Well guess what: that never happens. If you want to do something
is over-commitment. A wise person once said, “If you want to get differently, you have to start now. In the end, our true values are not
something done, ask a busy person,” but there is a fine line what we say we believe, they come alive in what we do and say each
between taking on a lot of work and taking on too much. It’s easy and every day.
to see how this happens: if you’re good at what you do and you like
your job, everybody wants to ‘rub up against you’ in some way: they
want you in their meetings; they seek your opinion; they ask you to
run a project for them. People with high Mojo tend to be literally
assaulted with opportunities, and they often can’t resist the siren
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is one of the world’s leading executive educators and
call of being asked to help out; after all, it’s a validation of their skill
coaches. His 30 books include MOJO: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It
and another way of being told, ‘We really like you.’ However, when Back If You Lose It (Hyperion, 2010) and What Got You Here Won't Get You There
we chronically over-commit, our sagging spirit inside becomes (Hyperion, 2007).

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