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Creating Breakthroughs in Business

Written by: Ruben Guzman

Article Overview: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein We need to radically shift from doing more of the same expecting different results - that's insanity! We need to create a breakthrough which is fundamentally a function of two things. First, we must shift the mindset, and second, we must have a corresponding shift in behavior. One without the other never works!

Creating Breakthroughs in Business

It’s Friday morning. You’re watching your staff walk in. They haven’t had very much sleep – worrying if they are going to be affected by the impending layoffs. No breakfast, no exercise, crummy food from the cafeteria, and too much to do. How do they physically look? – energetic or lethargic? What is their emotional state? – positive or negative? How’s their mental state? – sharp or dulled? Why are they there? – to fulfill on your organization’s mission and vision – or just to get a paycheck?

As a leader, you are faced with trying to improve the performance of your entire staff and improve the profitability of the organization. You try to motivate, inspire, or worse still – pressure and chastise. Improving performance requires more than just motivation. It takes getting to the foundation – addressing the mind set of the leadership team and the physical energy of the entire organization - and going up from there. Otherwise, you’re just put icing over mud thinking it’s a cake underneath!

Einstein said “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” It’s up to us to recognize that WE created the problems that we have – no one is to blame. And, it’s up to us to take responsibility for our own problems before we can really resolve them. We must then alter our mindset from where it was when we created our problems. In essence – we must shift our thinking AND shift our behaviors. One without the other is ineffective.

Creating breakthroughs in business begins by first empowering the leaders, who then lead by example in empowering the rest of the organization. We must first scrape off the “mud” which will then allow you to create a powerful foundation for breakthrough results on a consistent basis.

In this article, I will begin by addressing the Twenty One Habits that keep you from getting to the top. This is derived from Marshall Goldsmith’s groundbreaking book “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.” In the next two articles, I will address other areas that are key to creating breakthrough results in your leadership – and your organization.

Peter Drucker said, “We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop!” Before we can talk about fixing faulty behavior, we must identify the most common faults. These are a very specific breed of flaws. They are not flaws of skill. They are not flaws of intelligence. Nor are they flaws of unchangeable personality. What we’re dealing with here are challenges in interpersonal behavior – often leadership behavior. They are the egregious everyday annoyances that make your workplace substantially more noxious than it needs to be. They don’t happen in a vacuum. They are transactional flaws performed by one person against others.

Look through this list and check off any that you think apply to you. Then, meet with at least three people you work with and ask them to check off any that THEY think apply to you. This is the kind of feedback that will begin to make a difference in your leadership.




1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations – when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
3. Passing judgment: The need to rate and compare others, and impose our standards on them and on ourselves.
4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The over use of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others.
16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
21. Goal obsession: to the extent that we get so wrapped up in achieving our goal, that we do it at the expense of a larger mission, our health, our family, our relationships, etc.

Which of these occur for you or your organization? Checking off any of these is an indication that you or your organization could benefit from coaching – to shift the mindset AND alter the behaviors. Schedule a consultation today!

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Now, to continue in our process of creating breakthroughs in business...

If you did the work from the above section of identifying those noxious habits you sometimes exhibit, you are now ready to take the next step. First, consider that there has been a pattern of exhibiting these habits and that there is a condition responsible for them staying in place – INSANITY! Not that you are mentally deranged, but it’s that you have consistently been engaged in the same behaviors, expecting different results – that’s a definition of insanity. And, if you continue to do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.

Back to Einstein: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” In order for us to create breakthroughs, we need to shift our thinking and our behaviors.

Now, let’s define a breakthrough. It can mean different things to different people – all valid. But, for the purposes of creating breakthrough results in business, let’s use a definition based on martial arts. I’m sure you have seen a demonstration of someone breaking through a board, or maybe have done so yourself. Let’s define a breakthrough as breaking through resistance or a barrier giving access to a new realm that was previously unseen or undiscovered. And, if we are going to break through the board, what do we have to focus on? The board? If you do, you’ll break your hand. And yet, isn’t that what most of us do when we are faced with a problem – we focus on the problem? To break through the board, we must actually focus on a point PAST the board, or focus on going THROUGH the board. This is what will give us access to this new arena.

What gives us access to creating breakthroughs? Is it learning more? Is it doing more? Is it doing things better, faster, cheaper? Consider that none of these will do – at least not for long. What will give us access then?

Back to Einstein (a clever fellow): If we consider all that we know, and all that we don’t know, we see that our knowledge is inherently limited compared to all the knowledge that exists in the entire universe. What most of us do to try to make things better is to gain more knowledge. But, clearly, gaining more knowledge does not necessarily make a difference. As an example, look at how much more information people have about losing weight these days. Does this wealth of information make a difference? Clearly not! In fact, obesity and overweight have in fact risen to over 70% in the United States. Point is – knowledge isn’t the key to breakthrough results. What is then?

Our breakthroughs can only come from the domain of what we don’t know that we don’t know – otherwise known as our blind spots. We have all had the experience of driving a car and moving into a different lane, only to discover that there was a car in our blind spot! It is what we don’t see, what we don’t realize, what we have been unable to see that gives us access to a new realm previously unseen or undiscovered. What gives us access to our blind spots? I’m so glad you asked!

BEING COACHABLE. It is only by being coachable that we can gain access to our blind spots. This is really no mystery. For example, what 10 year-old knows everything there is to know about being an Olympic swimming champion? Clearly none. But yet, it is possible for that young swimmer to become a champion if, and only if they are willing to be coachable.

In my over 28 years of coaching champions, I have distinguished four levels of coachablility.
1. Not coachable – this means listening to one voice only – your own!
2. Selectively coachable – this means doing what the coach asks you to do – when you agree with it! Otherwise, you listen to your own little voice.
3. Reluctantly coachable – this means doing everything the coach wants you to do – whether you agree with it or not – still listening to your own little voice “I’ll try it for now”
4. Completely coachable – this means doing everything your coach asks, and completely trusting your coach, empowering you coach to win. If your coach wins, then you win, too! At this level, you surrender your little voice and completely listen to your coach.

Question. What level of coachability do you think it takes to reach the Olympic medal platform? If you said completely coachable, you are correct. It’s the same level of coachability it takes to attain the kind of breakthrough results in business you are probably committed to attaining. The only questions are, “What are you committed to?” and “Are you willing to be coachable?”

If you don’t have a coach yet – get one – FAST!

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BEING COACHABLE is not an automatic process. You don’t just flip a switch and become coachable. It’s a process. And, you can’t do it on your own. You need to work with your coach.

What separates those who are successful versus those who are super-successful is that the super-successful have a coach to follow-up with them and hold them accountable. Nobody ever changes for the better by just going to a training seminar or just reading a book. They get better by doing what they learned. And this “doing,” by definition, necessarily involves follow-up. Follow-up turns changing for the better into an ongoing process. When you involve other people in your continuing progress, you are virtually guaranteeing your continuing progress - you are virtually guaranteeing your continuing success. As an example, if you start a weight-loss program and know that someone who matters to you will check your weight and body-fat at the end of each month, you’re more likely to follow the dietary regimen and stay on it.

I can deceive myself into thinking that I am so self-disciplined that I don’t need to have a coach, or that coaching is a luxury and I don’t have time for it. But, consider that the key to success is follow-up, and the key to follow-up is involving another person besides me. It’s one thing to keep a log. But, that’s not follow-up – it’s data entry! Injecting a coach into the mix is like giving yourself a mirror so that you can see what you don’t know that you don’t know.

Being coachable gives us even more. It gives us access to an entirely different view of life – the EXTRAORDINARY.

Before we look at extraordinary, let’s look at ORDINARY – how most people view themselves. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with ordinary – it’s just a different view of life – and it’s common. When you listen to people in most social settings, or listen to the news, or watch talk shows, you can see this. It is given by people’s opinions, points of view, complaints, wants, desires, issues, concerns, judgments, assessments, fears, worries, comparisons, obligations and expectations. Again, nothing right or wrong here, but the ordinary is inherently limited – it emerges from what we know – and knowledge is inherently limited.

EXTRAORDINARY is not common, and is actually quite rare. It is given by honoring one’s word, promises, commitments and agreements. It is grounded in the principles of integrity, responsibility, respect, kindness, compassion and generosity. It emerges from what we don’t know that we don’t know – and is inherently unlimited. It is the perspective of champions. Listen to the great champions when they are interviewed – you will hear them speaking from the realm of the extraordinary!

What would it be like if you could live your life from the extraordinary? What would it be like if your entire organization could operate in the extraordinary? What could be possible? What kind of results could you produce?

So, now, the bottom-line. What are you committed to? And, are you willing to be coachable? If you’re committed to your business being extraordinary, then call to set up working with a coach – now!

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Article Tags: breakthrough, extraordinary, leadership



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