Alliant Prof and Management School Namesake Marshall Goldsmith
Tops Amazon’s Business Book List
 Jan. 9, 2007 - San Diego, CA – Amazon.com has just ranked Marshall Goldsmith’s new book "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" the number-one best-seller among its 779,000 business books; it rates #8 overall among Amazon’s 8 million titles. Dr. Goldsmith teaches here in San Diego at a business school that was named in his honor last year: the Marshall Goldsmith School of Management (MGSM) at Alliant International University. What he teaches here is pretty much what he teaches to CEOs there and there and there, in more than 70 executive suites across America.
 | | Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, Author, Executive Coach and Alliant International University Professor | A two-chapter excerpt of Dr. Goldsmith’s book was recently featured in BusinessWeek. The excerpt gave readers both a sneak peak at the book and at how Goldsmith uses feedback to take top executives to even higher levels of success. Dr. Goldsmith writes: My job is to help them [CEO’s]—to identify a personal habit that’s annoying their coworkers and to help them eliminate it—so that they retain their value to the organization. My job is to make them see that the skills and habits that have taken them this far might not be the right skills and habits to take them further…
First, I solicit “360 degree feedback” from their colleagues—as many as I can talk to up, down, and sideways in the chain of command, often including family members—for a comprehensive assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.
Then I confront them with what everybody really thinks about them.
Assuming that they accept this information, agree that they have room to improve, and commit to changing that behavior, then I show them how to do it.
I help them apologize to everyone affected by their flawed behavior (because it’s the only way to erase the negative baggage associated with our prior actions) and ask the same people for help in getting better… At a recent gathering on Alliant’s San Francisco campus, Dr. Goldsmith gave students, faculty and prospective students a taste of how executives get that help. He asked each guest to think of something s/he wanted to change, then told them to mill around and ask others how to make that change. The participants were not allowed to critique the suggestions they received; they could only say “thank you” and move on. Dr. Goldsmith then suggested that students pair up as “peer coaches” and phone one another each night to determine whether or not they had applied the suggestions. In addition to gatherings like the one in San Francisco, Dr. Goldsmith is assisting students through the extra-curricular “Thought Leader Project” which, like his online BusinessWeek column, draws not only on Dr. Goldsmith’s insights, but also from a small army of expert executives and management coaches. The Goldsmith Thought Leader project enables students to meet and learn from individuals who are living the professional life the student hope to one day achieve. Students in the one-year old project have gained valuable professional, internships and job leads from luminaries such as Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girls Scouts of the USA, and Ken Shelton, editor and publisher of Executive Excellence magazine. The 35 current Thought Leaders have joined the project as a way of giving back in appreciation for their own success. They volunteer their time to the project largely because they enjoy mentoring younger professionals; the students in MGSM are all graduate students and bring considerable levels of accomplishment and sophistication to their studies. About Alliant International University Alliant International University offers a unique curriculum that combines academics and apprenticeship in all courses of study. With accredited programs at San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, Irvine and San Diego, Alliant also hosts accredited programs in Mexico City, Mexico and Tokyo, Japan. About Marshall Goldsmith Dr. Marshall Goldsmith has been named one of the 50 most influential thought leaders in business by the American Management Association, and has been an executive coach to more than 70 CEOs around the world. The editor of Global Leadership, the Next Generation, he has written or edited 20 books on effective leadership and management practices. He is among the most sought-after corporate consultants in the world. The last book Goldsmith wrote prior to "What Got You Here," was "Leader of the Future 2" (published in Oct. 2006), edited with Frances Hesselbein. The inside cover notes: The “Leader of the Future” follows in the footsteps of the international
bestseller “The Leader of the Future,” which has sold hundreds of thousands
of copies, been translated into twenty-eight languages, and is one of
the most widely distributed collections on leadership to date.
For More Information
Contact
Nicolette Toussaint
Assistant Vice President for Communications
Alliant International University
ntoussaint@alliant.edu
Office: (415) 955-2037
Cell: (415) 955-2037
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