If you are reading this, you are, in all likelihood, a successful person. You may not be a key executive in a major corporation but you very likely are successful by most socio-economic standards. And you are likely to be working with other successful people. Intellectually, you realize that the leadership behavior that achieved yesterday's results may not be the behavior needed to achieve tomorrow's innovation. You have the challenge of helping yourself and the people you work with make the changes that will take your team to the next level.

While most of us can easily see the need to change the behavior of others, we often have great difficulty in changing ourselves! As we become more successful, it seems even harder to change. As Charles Handy has pointed out, the "paradox of success" occurs because we need to change before we have to change. However, when things are going well we often feel no reason to change.

I have recently completed a review of research on the topic of helping successful people change their behavior. A substantial amount has been written on why successful people succeed. But very little has been written on the challenges involved in helping successful people change. The entire concept is somewhat counter-intuitive.

What have I learned about helping people like you and your colleagues change?

In almost all cases, even the most successful leaders can increase their effectiveness by changing certain elements of their behavior. By becoming aware of how we can improve, involving respected colleagues and following up, we can almost always get better at the behavior we choose as perceived by the people we choose. But we must bear in mind that the very beliefs that have helped us succeed can become challenges when it is time for us to change.

Four Key Beliefs of Successful People:
Their Implications for Behavioral Change

There are many reasons why successful people succeed. Some factors can be changed and some cannot. My review of research focused on the beliefs that differentiate more successful people from their peers (who may have similar potential to achieve). Successful people tend to have four underlying beliefs:

1. I choose to succeed.
2. I can succeed.
3. I will succeed.
4. I have succeeded.

Each belief increases our likelihood of achieving success. Each belief will be discussed in terms of why it generally leads to success and how it can inhibit change.

I choose to succeed

Successful people believe that they are doing what they choose to do, because they choose to do it.

Successful people have a high need for self-determination. The more successful a person is, the more likely this is to be true. Successful people have a unique distaste for feeling controlled or manipulated. In my work, I have learned that I cannot force executives to change. I can only help them get better at what they choose to change. The ultimate motivation for change has to come from the person being coached - not the coach.

Having the belief "I choose to succeed" means that successful people need to feel a personal commitment to what they are doing. They need a sense of ownership. When leaders have a personal commitment to the mission, they will be much more likely to achieve results. They will also be effective in attracting and developing fellow believers who want to get the job done.

"I choose to succeed" is a belief that is highly correlated with achievement. Adding "and I choose to change" can be a very difficult transition.

Successful people's personal commitment can make it hard for them to change.

The more we believe our behavior is a result of our own choices and commitments, the less likely we are to want to change our behavior.

One of the best-researched principles in psychology is called cognitive dissonance. The underlying theory is simple. The more we are committed to believing that something is true, the less likely we are to be willing to change our beliefs (even in the face of clear evidence that shows we are wrong). Cognitive

dissonance works in favor of successful people in most situations. Their commitment encourages them to stay the course and to not give up when the

going gets tough. This same principle can work against successful people when they should change course.

A macro-level example of this phenomenon has occurred in Japan. In the 1980s, Japanese managers were widely praised as role models for leadership behavior. Books were written and "benchmarking trips" were organized so that leaders from around the world could learn from their success. Unfortunately, the style that worked in the 1980s did not work in the 1990s. Rapid changes in technology, the economy, the role of manufacturing and the workforce made the Japanese management approach far less desirable. It has taken two decades for many Japanese leaders to admit that their previous approach was no longer working. Many leaders for years denied the fact that change was needed.

I can succeed

Successful people believe that they have the internal capacity to make desirable things happen.

This is perhaps the most central belief shown to drive individual success. People who believe they can succeed see opportunities where others see threats. This comfort with ambiguity leads people to take greater risks and achieve greater returns.

Successful people tend to not feel like victims of fate. They believe that they have the motivation and ability to change their world. They see success for themselves and others as largely a function of motivation and ability, not luck, random chance or external factors.

There is a very positive (and not surprising) relationship between need for self-determination and internal locus of control. If people believe that the world is largely out of their control and that they are merely "cogs in the wheel of life", they will not feel as bad about being controlled or manipulated. If people feel

they can change their world and make it better, they will find external control and manipulation much more distasteful.

Successful people often confuse correlation with causality. They often do not realize that they are successful "because of" some behaviors and "in spite of" others.

Any human (in fact, any animal) will tend to repeat behavior that is followed by positive reinforcement. The more successful people are (by definition), the more positive reinforcement they tend to receive. One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, "I am successful. I behave this way. Therefore, I must be successful because I behave this way!"

Successful business leaders tend to repeat behaviors that are followed by rewards. They may fear that changing any behavior will break their "string of success".

I will succeed

An unflappable sense of optimism is one of the most important characteristics of successful people.

Successful people not only believe that they can achieve, they believe that they will achieve. This belief goes beyond any one task. Successful leaders tend to communicate with an overall sense of self-confidence. In a recent study with Accenture involving over 200 high-potential leaders (from 120 companies around the world), self-confidence ranked as one of the "top 10" elements of effective leadership for leaders in the past, the present and the future.

Successful leaders not only believe that they will achieve, they assume that the people they respect will achieve. If they believe that their people have the motivation and ability, they communicate this contagious sense of optimism and self-confidence to others.

Successful people tend to pursue opportunities. If they set a goal, write the goal down and publicly announce the goal, they will tend to do "whatever it takes" to achieve the goal.

I have succeeded

Successful people tend to have a positive interpretation of their past performance.

High achievers not only believe that they have achieved results; they tend to believe that they were instrumental in helping the results get achieved. This tends to be true even if the positive outcomes were caused by external events that they did not control.

While the belief, "I have been successful" has many positive benefits; it can cause difficulty when it is time to change behavior.

Successful people's positive view of their performance can make it hard to hear disconfirming information from others.

Successful people consistently over-rate their performance relative to their professional peers. I have asked more than 50,000 successful professionals to rate themselves relative to your professional peers. Close to 85 percent of all successful professionals rated themselves in the top 20 percent of their peer group (who were, by the way the exercise was defined, statistically as successful as they were).

In trying to help successful people change behavior, it is important to help them separate the message from the messenger.

Successful people tend to deny the importance of disconfirming input for three common reasons: 1) the input is being delivered by someone that they do not see as an equal in terms of success, so therefore it doesn't count; 2) they assume that input which is inconsistent with their self-image is incorrect and the other person is "confused"; or 3) they agree with the input, but assume that the behavior must not be that important since they are successful.

Coming up in part two of this article

How does one learn to change one's behavior to achieve positive, measurable, long-term success, especially when our old behavior helped us in the past but may no longer be useful as we move forward? We have completed before-and-after studies with thousands of successful executives who have worked with us

to change their behavior to achieve continued success and have discovered a series of steps that can be used to help any successful person change their interpersonal behavior. Next I'll be discussing these steps, including receiving input from raters, selecting behaviors for change, involve respected colleagues and teaching colleagues to be helpful coaches.

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