The Principle: Success can become its own trap. The habits, strategies, and mindsets that helped you reach your current level often become blind spots as you grow. Knowing when to stop, take a hard look, and change course is one of the toughest jobs you’ll do as a leader. Don’t call it quitting. Call it knowing when enough is enough.
Stop doing what doesn’t work.
The Hard Truth
Sometimes the best move is to stop.
Executive insights 👥 Let me tell you how that played out in my company.
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The insight you share might be the turning point someone else is waiting for.
đź“– the book behind the Rule
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith’s book is a blunt reminder that the biggest obstacles for successful leaders aren’t skill gaps, they’re behavioral blind spots. Goldsmith lays out the twenty common habits that undermine high achievers: defensiveness, needing to win too much, refusing to apologize, clinging to old methods, or simply ignoring feedback. His point is direct: the behaviors that earned you early success often become liabilities as the stakes rise. Advancement requires self-awareness, humility, and the courage to change the habits that no longer serve you, especially the ones you’re most attached to. The book teaches leaders to confront their own arrogance, listen more than they talk, and deliberately replace ego-driven actions with growth-driven ones.
Executive Takeaway: If you want to reach the next level, you must be willing to shed the behaviors that built the last one. The leaders who stagnate are the ones who refuse to evolve. The ones who rise are those who face their blind spots head-on and let go of the habits that no longer produce results.
“The higher you go in the organization, the more your problems are behavioral. The problems that got you to your current level of success are rarely the ones that will get you to the next level.” —Marshall Goldsmith
Usually, it’s not some new mistake that tanks the company, it’s repeating the old mistakes over and over again. Some idiots will call it determination when they keep doing the same broken thing over and over, but they’re doing it harder now. The rest of us call that stubbornness, not “grit”. What worked yesterday may not work today. Don’t keep doing something just because it’s familiar or because it worked in the past. Look at what’s actually working, be honest about what’s not, and stop wasting time and money on things that aren’t getting results.
🎓 MASTER Rule No. 19 —Stop doing what doesn’t work.
- When to Apply | Red Flags
- Rule Overview
- Ask the Right Questions
- Contrarian View
- Actionable Strategies
- Real World Scenarios
- Leadership Team Discussion
- Rules to Results Workshop
- The Right Track | Green Flags
- Key Terms
- Book Summary
- Author Links
- Executive Insights
- Worth Watching
- Related Reading
October 2026
This Master Class is in development.
Help us build each of the 50 Master Classes, by adding your insights and sharing your entrepreneurial stories.
Class begins Monday, January 4, 2027, with each Rule being built out as we go. Each will contain the study sections listed above and will continue to evolve through your contributions. As business leaders continue to challenge these ideas, the Institute becomes more and more valuable, not because it’s finished, but because it never will be.