Triggers: Sparking Positive Change and Making it Last

This book suggests that knowing what triggers us and mastering our response to it is the key to lasting behavioral change. Triggers are stimuli that prompt thoughts and actions, often causing us to act in detrimental ways, to say or do things we later regret, or to stay silent when we needed to speak up.

Each of us has our unique triggers. We respond differently to certain people or situations. Maybe a colleague at work pushes our buttons or perhaps a bad word from our boss makes us angry or afraid. Whatever the trigger, the key is to know how to respond – how to act in our best interests rather than in self-harming ways.

This book helps us spot our triggers and gives us tools, strategies and structures to control our impulses, choose our reactions, and move closer to becoming the person we want to be.

So who's this book for? We think it's best suited to managers and team leaders. The author has a long track record of coaching top business executives. He knows his audience well and writes in a style that fits that audience. But this book is all about developing self-awareness, self-discipline and making positive change, so it's relevant to anyone who wants to learn new ways of responding to challenging situations and relationships, or who wants to replace bad habits with healthy ones.

Marshall Goldsmith is a renowned and respected corporate coach with more than 35 years' experience. He's worked with more than 80 CEOs across the world's top corporations, developing leadership processes that have impacted more than a million people.

Goldsmith has a PhD from UCLA and is on the faculty of the executive education programs at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. He's authored or edited 35 books, including the New York Times bestsellers "MOJO" and "What Got You Here Won't Get You There." You can hear a Book Insight podcast on that book on the Mind Tools site.

Mark Reiter is a literary agent and writer who's collaborated on 13 previous books with a number of authors.

So keep listening to hear how to forecast the environment you're heading into, how daily questions can help you achieve lasting change, and why structure is the key to success.

"Triggers" is divided into four parts. Part One explores the common obstacles that stand in the way of behavioral change, explains what triggers are, and shows us how to identify them.

Part Two offers some top tips to make change happen – tools Goldsmith uses in his own life and has passed on to his executive clients. Part Three looks at how structure can help us make behavioral change that sticks. And Part Four summarizes what's gone before and stresses the importance of continual growth and development.

This simple structure makes the book an easy read and it also helps drive Goldsmith's message home. There's nothing particularly new or groundbreaking in this book, but reading "Triggers" is a bit like having an extended session with an effective coach. There's no face-to-face input – and no big bill at the end – but there is a lot of helpful information, including exercises to get us started on changing our behavior.

Several times, the author asks us to put down the book, pick up a pen and paper, and get to work on knowing and changing ourselves, much as he'd do with clients at the end of a coaching session. The reader who does the work and is committed to change will get the most out of "Triggers." There's also plenty of evidence in this book that his tools work – from the author's own success to all the anecdotes he includes about his clients.

That said, some of his homework is a big ask, requiring rigid self-discipline, and the author recognizes that many of us have got a mountain to climb. We particularly like his long list of common inner beliefs, excuses and rationalizations that cause us to fail when we set an intention to change.

For example, we may have unrealistic expectations of ourselves. We may fail to predict that we'll get tired, or that our enthusiasm will fade. We may chronically underestimate the time it takes to get something done, and we seldom plan on being waylaid by distractions or unexpected events. We predict quite a few readers will nod enthusiastically when they see this list!

But there are ways to overcome these barriers, so let's take a closer look at our potential triggers and how we can manage our responses to them.

Every environment we enter is packed with triggers – from the traffic-clogged freeway to the airport lounge, and from the employee canteen to the boardroom. Triggers can be internal or external; direct or indirect; conscious or unconscious; anticipated or unexpected; encouraging or discouraging; productive or counterproductive.

The smell of donuts causes us to break our carb-free diet. A reckless motorist drives us into road rage. The ambience of a casino prompts us to stay for hours and open our wallets, or a combative colleague sparks childhood memories of an angry parent and fills us with fear.

It's worth identifying positive triggers that help us feel better, work better, or behave in kind or generous ways – like a meditation session that leads to a great idea or praise from our boss that prompts us to work harder. But the goal of this book is to help us recognize the triggers that propel us to act in harmful ways – to others or to ourselves. It then teaches us how to put some time and space between stimulus and response, so we can choose how we behave.

Easier said than done, you might think but, once we're aware of our triggers and their power over us, we can improve our chances of success by forecasting the environment. This is a three-stage process, comprising anticipation, avoidance and adjustment.

As an example, think of a business meeting. Before you go in, take time to anticipate the temperature of the room. For example, what personalities will be present? What are their agendas, what exchanges will likely occur, and what impact will they have on you? Is anything likely to be a negative trigger for you?

If you know an experience is going to be difficult or detrimental, ask yourself if you can avoid it. Successful people love a challenge, Goldsmith says. A leader's impulse is usually to engage. But sometimes they'd be wise to show restraint and avoid engagement. This applies to all of us. In simple terms, pick your battles.

If you can't avoid the situation, it's time to adjust. How can you change what you say, alter your communication style, or reduce your interactions so you shield yourself from your triggers? Adjustment is about self-management. It comes from being more aware of your environment, more in touch with your triggers, and more in control of your impulses.

There's nothing particularly innovative in Goldsmith's message, but we're pretty sure this and his related tools will get you thinking about how to prepare better for potentially triggering situations.

Let's now look at a tool the author uses frequently, and to which he attributes a good deal of his success.

Goldsmith suggests we ask ourselves questions at the end of each day that measure our level of engagement with our lives, our workplaces, and our careers. They help us assess what we're doing to ensure our happiness and wellbeing. The questions are phrased in a way that reminds us we're responsible for our feelings, our responses, and the way things turn out.

The author offers six initial questions: Did I do my best to set clear goals today? Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today? Did I do my best to find meaning today? Did I do my best to be happy today? Did I do my best to build positive relationships today? And did I do my best to be fully engaged today?

Notice they all begin in the same way, putting emphasis on what we did to have a better day, not on what others did to us, or on the circumstances that arose that were out of our control. Listen to the difference between the questions, "How happy was I today?" or, "How meaningful was my day?"' and, "Did I do my best to be happy" and, "Did I do my best to find meaning?"

Goldsmith asks himself these six questions every evening, along with another 16 questions including, "Did I do my best to exercise, meditate, have a good night's sleep, learn something new, and be grateful for what I have?"

He doesn't just answer the questions with a simple "Yes" or "No." He rates himself out of 10, and he pays someone to listen to his answers every evening on the phone. This is what I meant earlier when I said some of Goldsmith's homework is a big ask. It takes discipline to write out questions and to rate your performance every evening, but it takes an extra level of discipline and commitment to agree to share them with someone else every night.

There are other options, of course. You can have a shorter list of questions and you can share your answers by email or text. But the bottom line is, you need to try to maintain this activity over the long term.

We really like this tool and Goldsmith provides plenty of examples of clients who've adopted it and for whom it's worked. Using daily questions may or may not be a realistic goal for you. But even if you can't commit to it, this section of the book is a powerful reminder that we're responsible for our own happiness, wellbeing and career success, and that blaming others is a waste of time and energy.

Let's now look at what Goldsmith says about the importance of structure.

It's clear from his commitment to daily questions that the author believes wholeheartedly in the power of rigorous routine. He argues that structure is the foundation of adult behavioral change. To prove his point, he turns to Ford Motor Company and its former CEO Alan Mulally, who was one of Goldsmith's clients. "Fortune" magazine ranked Mulally as the third-greatest leader in the world when he retired from Ford in 2014, behind Pope Francis and Angela Merkel.

The secret to Mulally's success? Structure.

After arriving at Ford in 2006, Mulally introduced weekly meetings every Thursday morning, with his 16 top executives and their guests from around the world. Attendance was mandatory, in person or by videoconference, and side discussions, interruptions, swipes at other executives, and cell phones were all banned.

These meetings began with Mulally reviewing Ford's overall plan, status, forecast, and areas for special attention, scoring each of these using a green, yellow and red color system to represent good, concerned or poor. He then asked each leader to do the same for their area of responsibility, using the same colors. Executives who refused to cooperate with the new system were asked to leave.

This routine continued, week after week, year after year. The rigid, repetitive structure encouraged everyone to take responsibility for his or her division, to speak concisely, be honest about performance, and commit to improvement, because they knew they'd be back at the meeting the following week.

Structure helps us take control of an otherwise unruly environment, and it works as well for personal behavior as it does for running a multinational like Ford. When we write a shopping list, we impose structure on our spending. When we pay for a personal trainer and schedule a twice-weekly work-out, or when we agree to share our daily questions with another person at a set time, we impose structure on our self-discipline and help ourselves to act in our own best interests.

We also like what Goldsmith says about ego depletion and decision fatigue – the idea that our willpower diminishes the more decisions we make or the more we have to control our emotions. When we're running on empty, it's tough to master our impulses. Again, this isn't a new discovery, but it's a good reminder that drives home the author's message about the importance of structure.

We don't think you'll find any major insights in this book that you haven't come across elsewhere. But Goldsmith offers a variety of practical tools to help with self-discipline and impulse control, along with anecdotal evidence from a range of highly successful clients that his methods work.

So if you're interested in personal development and in creating positive and lasting change at work or at home, and if you're willing to do the legwork, "Triggers" is a valuable handbook that'll help you on your way.

"Triggers" by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter is published by Profile Books.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.