February 15, 2010
From: Andrew Clancy
Senior Editor
Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Leaders often hear about the role that personal happiness plays in professional success. It can occasionally create a "chicken and egg" argument about whether personal happiness is the result of professional success or professional success is the result of personal happiness. Regardless of one's opinion, the two are intertwined and play an equally large role in the effectiveness of employees. When the work force is populated with people who feel fulfilled, goals get accomplished quickly and with little resistance. The feeling of everything coming together can go by many names, one of which would be mojo. Leadership expert Marshall Goldsmith took a close look at what creates and sustains this magic quality in his book Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It. He recently spoke with Soundview about the impact mojo can have on leaders and the people they're tasked with leading.

Soundview: Define Mojo for us as you define it in the book.

Goldsmith: Mojo is that positive spirit toward what you are doing. It starts on the inside and radiates to the outside.

Soundview: Tell us about the importance of establishing criteria to identify who you are when it comes to mojo.

Goldsmith: If you look at our definition of mojo, that positive spirit toward what you are doing, the key word is you. Who are you? In looking at the concept of identity, our identity comes from the past, how others saw us, and the future, what we project onto ourselves or what others project onto us. So, in the book I talk about the importance of really focusing on creating an identity that's a positive and useful identity for ourselves and not stereotyping ourselves. As it relates to the concept of criteria, (we should be) establishing criteria about what is really important to us.

I use one example of my doctor who has a private practice. One of his criteria is that he wanted a practice where he could spend more time with his patients. That was critically important to him, as opposed to someone else who might have a criteria that he or she has to make a certain amount of money, or someone else who might want to live in a certain location. When establishing criteria for your identity, ask yourself, "Who do I want to be?" Ultimately, to be satisfied in life, no one can establish the criteria of who you want to be for you but you.

Soundview: Is mojo an individual pursuit or does a leader have an opportunity to help others find their mojo?

Goldsmith: It can be both. The best thing you can do as a leader to have other people demonstrate mojo is to show them yours. You want them to experience happiness and meaning in what they do? Let them see yours.

One of the people in the book is Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, a spectacularly good leader. Alan is a great guy who's always upbeat and positive. He never acts like a martyr. The message he sends out every day is that his work is meaningful and he is happy doing it. Well, what message do you send to your people if you don't send out that positive message? You send out a message that says, "I'm miserable because I'm here and being around you bums me out." That's not motivational to anybody. It's bad at work and it's even worse at home when we go home with these bad attitudes. What attitudes do we send to our children? "Being around you doesn't make me happy and by the way, I don't find today as meaningful, so I guess you don't matter very much."

The other thing we can do to help other people find their mojo is to quit looking for it outside ourselves and start looking for it in the mirror. Employee satisfaction in the United States is currently at an all-time low. The way a lot of companies are tackling this is by saying, "What can we do for the employees?" I think that's a nice idea. I think it's a much healthier idea to have everyone look in the mirror and say, "What can I do to increase my own personal experience and meaning? What can I do to increase my own personal experience of happiness?" As opposed to looking at it from the outside, look at it from the inside.

I think it's really important to encourage employees to understand that rather than wait for somebody to give mojo to us, we need to really challenge ourselves and ask ourselves in a creative way, "What can we do to increase our own experience of happiness and meaning in life?"