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Marshall Goldsmith Profile

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority on leadership and employee relations, demonstrating how good management of human resources can achieve positive, lasting change in the age of globalization.

Dr. Goldsmith has authored or edited thirty-one books, including MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, both of which made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. The latter title won the Harold Longman Award for Business Book of the Year and was chosen by the Wall Street Journal as a #1 business book. His works are available in 28 languages and have made the bestseller lists in eight different countries.

A Ph.D. from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Dr. Goldsmith has been nominated as one of the hundred most distinguished graduates of that School in its 75-year history. He teaches executive education at Tuck School, Dartmouth and is often invited to be a guest lecturer at other leading business schools. A board member of the Peter Drucker foundation for a decade, he has also volunteered as a teacher for U.S. Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives and 4 leaders of the International and American Red Cross; the ARC named him National Volunteer of the Year.

In the biannual global study of business thinkers sponsored by The London Times and Forbes, Dr. Goldsmith was recognized as being among the fifteen most influential business thinkers in the world. He has been honored with many awards, including the Institute for Management Studies Lifetime Achievement Award (he is one of only two recipients). Other acknowledgements include being chosen as one of the fifty great thinkers and leaders in management for the past eighty years by the American Management Association, being named one of the fifty great leaders in America by BusinessWeek and chosen as one of the top ten executive educators by the Wall Street Journal.

  • View Extended/Alternate Bio

    Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a world authority in helping successful leaders achieve positive, lasting change in behavior: for themselves, their people and their teams.

    He is the million-selling author or editor of 31 books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There—a Wall Street Journal #1 business book and winner of the Harold Longman Award for Business Book of the Year. His books have been translated into 28 languages and become bestsellers in eight countries.

    Recently, Dr. Goldsmith was recently recognized as one of the fifteen most influential business thinkers in the world in the global bi-annual study sponsored by The London Times and Forbes. His other professional acknowledgments include: Institute for Management Studies—Lifetime Achievement Award (one of only two ever awarded by the IMS), American Management Association—50 great thinkers and leaders who have influenced the field of management over the past 80 years, BusinessWeek—50 great leaders in America, The Wall Street Journal—top ten executive educators, Forbes—five most-respected executive coaches, Leadership Excellence—top five thinkers on leadership, Economic Times (India)—top CEO coaches of America, Economist (UK)—most credible executive advisors in the new era of business, National Academy of Human Resources—Fellow of the Academy (America’s top HR award), Fast Company—America’s preeminent executive coach and Leader to Leader Institute—2010 Leader of the Future Award. His work has been recognized by almost every professional organization in his field.

    Dr. Goldsmith’s Ph.D. is from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management where he was recognized as one of 100 distinguished graduates in the 75 year history of the School. He teaches executive education at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and frequently speaks at leading business schools. He is one of a select few advisors who have been asked to work with over 120 major CEOs and their management teams. He served on the Board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for ten years. He has been a volunteer teacher for US Army Generals, Navy Admirals, Girl Scout executives, International and American Red Cross leaders—where he was a National Volunteer of the Year.

    Marshall’s books include: Succession: Are You Ready?—a Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Leader of the Future—a BusinessWeek bestseller, The Organization of the Future 2, and The Leadership Investment—Choice Award winners (academic business books of the year).

Marshall Goldsmith Speaking Videos

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Marshall Goldsmith's Speech Descriptions

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith draws on the expertise of a distinguished academic career and many years of coaching at the world’s top companies to present invaluable and thought-provoking speeches.

He shows the things that can make someone lose focus or efficiency in their job, and how these pitfalls can be avoided; using the results of a study of 86,000 people being coached for success, he explains how to be a leader of the future, with particular emphasis on how to lead in a global organization.

Dr. Goldsmith also speaks on the new world of customer expectations and how the best salespeople need to adapt in order to remain at the top of their game. He also demonstrates how to build a talent-rich organization.

How to get and keep your mojo. What to do to get it back if you lose it.

  • Identify the five key variables that impact engagement on the job
  • The Mojo Tool Kit (14 practical tools to achieve success)

    The skills, talents and abilities that got you here, may not get you there.

  • Discover the 20 annoying personal habits that get leaders into trouble
  • See results tracking 86,000 people in coaching for success

    Looking at the challenges for leadership success in the new millennium.

  • Leading New Age professionals
  • Leading in rapidly changing times

    Leadership in the Global Organization

  • Five emerging competencies for global leaders
  • Working effectively across cultures
  • Building effective global teams
  • Leading and managing virtual teams

    Sales success in the new world of customer expectations.

  • A new approach: it is easier to stop than start
  • 16 habits that can get even the best sales people in trouble

    Align your talent practice to business outcomes.

  • Discover the 10 Deadly Sins of talent management
  • Learn how to build a talent-rich organization

  • Marshall Goldsmith on Speaking

    I want to help successful leaders achieve positive lasting change in behavior, so they don’t just walk away and say it was a fun presentation or a good presentation, but they achieve positive, lasting change over time.

    SPEAKING.COM: What do you want people to learn and take away from your presentation?

    GOLDSMITH: I want people to learn how to achieve positive lasting change in their behavior. My mission is to help successful leaders get even better. If you do a Google search ‘Helping successful leaders,’ of the top 500 hits, 450 are me. My mission is very clear. I want to help successful leaders achieve positive lasting change in behavior, so they don’t just walk away and say it was a fun presentation or a good presentation, but they achieve positive, lasting change over time.

    SPEAKING.COM: What types of audiences would most benefit from your message?

    GOLDSMITH: It depends on the course I’m teaching. If my course is about Succession, it would be really a very high end executive audience. If it’s What Got You Here Won’t Keep You There, it would probably be pretty much anyone in a leadership role. Or if it’s about my books Trigger or MOJO, it could be anyone because these books are about messages applied to any kind of audience. So, the type of audience would depend on what my message is.

    SPEAKING.COM: What kind of special prep work do you do prior to an event and how do you prepare for your speaking engagements?

    GOLDSMITH: I try to learn, and since most of the people I work with are leaders, I try to interview the CEO and make sure that the message that I deliver is consistent with the vision the CEO has for the organization, because I found that if you don’t have top management support behind what you’re saying, you’re probably wasting your time, or even worse, going backwards.

    SPEAKING.COM: Which of your keynote speaking topics are your favorites and why?

    GOLDSMITH: My favorites would be “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: Helping Successful Leaders Get Even Better.” Thesecond one would be “Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts… Becoming the Person You Want to Be,” and the third one would be “MOJO.” So these three would be my favorite topics. Why? They’re all related to important books that I’ve written, and they’re all topics that emotionally I just love. I really believe in helping people achieve positive, lasting change.

    I’m very proud of the fact that in my book, Triggers, 27 major CEOs whom I have coached endorsed the book.

    SPEAKING.COM: What inspired you to start doing speaking engagements?

    GOLDSMITH: Well, I met Dr. Paul Hersey, a very famous person who was one of the highest-paid speakers in our field. He was kind enough when I was a young man to let me follow him around and learn to do what he did. He got double-booked one day, and he asked me, “Can you do what I do?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I’ll pay you $1,000 a day.” I was making $15,000 a year. I said, “I’ll try.”

    I did a program for the Metropolitan Life Insurance company in New York. They were very upset because I wasn’t him, but I got ranked first place of all the speakers. I was 28 years old; $1000 a day 38 years ago was a lot of money. They were very happy. They said, “We’d like to hire Marshall again.” That’s how I got into this business. A lot of life is luck. And help from a great person, Dr. Paul Hersey.

    SPEAKING.COM: What are some of the successes you’ve helped clients make?

    GOLDSMITH: From a micro-level perspective, as an executive coach, I don’t get paid if my clients don’t get better. And I help my clients to make positive long-term change. The most important behavior is judged by the most important people. I’m very proud of the fact that in my book, Triggers, 27 major CEOs whom I have coached endorsed the book. These are 27 of the most important leaders of the world who stood up and said, “I have a coach. It’s okay. I’m trying to get better.”

    What I’m really proud of is the fact that 30 years ago, coaching was something leaders would be ashamed of. They’d be embarrassed to admit they have a coach. Today, it’s something people are proud of. That’s a really positive change I think I’ve helped make.

    The second change is at the macro level. In my speaking, we did a study called “Leadership is a Contact Sport” that showed the impact not just of people enjoying a program, but the impact a year later in terms of positive change in leadership behavior. This was a study involving 86,000 people from eight major corporations.

    SPEAKING.com Exclusive Interview with Marshall Goldsmith
    Leadership Success with Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
    In this interview, Marshall discusses:
  • How organizations can develop high potential leaders.
  • What is leadership mojo and why it's important.
  • The 20 annoying habits that get leaders into trouble.
    Read the Full Interview
  • "What we've learned is by challenging ourselves everyday, we can really build our own mojo, without waiting for the rest of the world to give it to us."
    - Marshall Goldsmith

    What People are Saying about Seeing Marshall Speak

    Rating Entries

    “We were a very successful team who took our performance to the next level. With Marshall’s help we identified our two areas and went to work. We used everyone’s help and support, exceeded our improvement expectations and had fun! A team’s dedication to continuous improvement combined with Marshall’s proven process ROCKS!”
        Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company

    “As the CEO of the Girl Scouts, I was working to help a great organization become ‘the best that we could be’. The first person Marshall volunteered to work with was me—this sent an important message. I was exuberant about the experience, I improved and we moved this process across the organization. Now I am Chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute – and we are still working together to serve leaders.”
        Frances Hesselbein, Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree

    “Marshall is a great coach and teacher. He has done a lot to help both me and our high-potential leaders. His approach is practical, useful, helpful and fun!”
        JP Garnier, CEO, Glaxo SmithKline

    “At McKesson, we are on a mission—together with our customers—to fundamentally change the cost and quality of how healthcare is delivered. To fully realize the potential that lies in this transformation, our leaders must be able to demonstrate values-based leadership practices to maximize employee engagement each and every day. Marshall’s teachings remind us of how personal growth and change are a never ending journey.”
        John Hammergren, CEO, McKesson

    “Marshall Goldsmith has helped me become a more effective leader—as judged by the people who are most important at Getty Images—our employees. Marshall has helped me and my executive team members to be much better positive role models for living our Leadership Principles.”
        Jonathan Klein, CEO, Getty Images

    “Marshall has helped me personally to improve as a leader and has provided the tools and dynamics to turn a well-functioning management team into a high-performance team, where all the members have improved individually, and considerably added to team performance.”
        David Pyott, CEO, Allergan

    “Marshall is a dynamo. He helps highly successful people get better and better and better. His advice helps me enormously at work, but it makes an even bigger impact at home. My wife and kids stand up and applaud Marshall for helping me become a better husband and dad. What could be better than that?”
        Mark Tercek, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs & Co

    “A great coach teaches you how to improve yourself. Marshall is a great coach! He has a unique ability to help you determine what you can improve and what will have the greatest impact on the people you lead and love.”
        Brian Walker, CEO, Herman Miller

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    Books by Marshall Goldsmith:

    Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It!
    In his follow-up to the The New York Times bestseller, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, #1 executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, lays out the ways that we can get—and keep—our Mojo.

    Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: 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—and when do you need to just ‘let it go’?).

    Mojo is: that positive spirit toward what we are doing now that starts from the inside and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning—not only in business, but in life.



    What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
    How Successful People Become Even More Successful

    Goldsmith, an executive coach to the corporate elite, pinpoints 20 bad habits that stifle already successful careers as well as personal goals like succeeding in marriage or as a parent. Most are common behavioral problems, such as speaking when angry, which even the author is prone to do when dealing with a teenage daughter’s belly ring. Though Goldsmith deals with touchy-feely material more typical of a self-help book—such as learning to listen or letting go of the past—his approach to curing self-destructive behavior is much harder-edged. For instance, he does not suggest sensitivity training for those prone to voicing morale-deflating sarcasm.

    His advice is to stop doing it. To stimulate behavior change, he suggests imposing fines (e.g., $10 for each infraction), asserting that monetary penalties can yield results by lunchtime. While Goldsmith’s advice applies to everyone, the highly successful audience he targets may be the least likely to seek out his book without a direct order from someone higher up. As he points out, they are apt to attribute their success to their bad behavior. Still, that may allow the less successful to gain ground by improving their people skills first.



    The Leader of the Future 2
    Visions, Strategies, and Practices for the New Era

    The Leader of the Future 2 follows in the footsteps of the international bestseller The Leader of the Future, which has been translated into twenty-eight languages, and is one of the most widely distributed edited collections on leadership to date. In twenty-seven inspiring and insightful essays, this book celebrates the wisdom of some of the most recognized thought leaders of our day who share their unique vision of leadership for the future.

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