By: Marshall Goldsmith
Reviewed By: Glain Roberts-McCabe
The Premise: In follow-up to his best seller, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There, uber coach Marshall Goldsmith explores Mojo: the moment when we do something that’s purposeful, powerful and positive and the rest of the world recognizes. In a departure from his previous book, Mojo explores two new ingredients that highly successful people seem to have in common: happiness and meaning. Goldsmith looks at four key factors that impact our professional and personal Mojo: identity (who do you think you are?), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are – and what have you done lately?) and acceptance (what can you change – when do you need to just “let it go”?). The book encourages you to explore what aspects of your job meet your Mojo needs and which are lacking. For anyone who once loved their job and now finds themselves dreading Monday mornings, the Mojo Toolkit is filled with tips on how to regain your Mojo. Whether it’s about changing yourself, or the situation you’ve found yourself in, there’s a strategy in there for everyone who wants to enjoy what they do.
The Bottom-line: Marshall Goldsmith specializes in helping smart leaders who want to be more successful be more successful. The key component of that statement is smart leaders who want to be more successful. As a highly paid executive coach, Goldsmith spends most of his time helping people break behavioural habits that diminish their leadership efforts (often unwittingly). In Mojo, Goldsmith actually goes a step beyond helping you “say or do” the right thing. After all, knowing who you need to schmooze and how you need to schmooze them may get you the promotion, but isn’t going to make you love a job that drains you enthusiasm. The four pillars of your “mojo” (identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance) offer fascinating insights into self limiting behaviours that we are all guilty of (eg: related to identity… how many of you are still hanging onto to feedback that your grade 5 teacher said about you?). For busy, mid-career leaders, Mojo is a great forced-reflection exercise that makes you check in to see if what you’re chasing is what you really want..
