Ruth Gotian has devoted her life and career to finding out what makes Nobel laureates, astronauts, CEOs, and Olympic champions tick. Now she’s sharing her knowledge with the world— and, fortunately for us, with the Perspectives from the Top audience.
The Success Factor (ft. Ruth Gotian)
What makes astronauts and athletes so successful— and how you can unlock that same power
OPENING QUOTE:
“That clearly was not my calling. Clearly, I was not passionate about it. And that was really my first inkling that you can be good at something and not enjoy it. And that's okay.”
- Ruth Gotian
GUEST BIO:
Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer, Assistant Professor of Education in anesthesiology, and former Executive Director of the mentoring academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. After starting her career in university residency management at NY State and Cornell, she took a brief foray into international banking before moving into academic medical administration. She’s led the transformation of learning and development for thousands of students during her 26 years at Weill Cornell. During this period, Ruth earned her PhD in Education from Columbia. She now studies what makes people successful high-performers so she can help others do the same.
Ruth’s book, The Success Factor, covers this very topic— as do her writings in popular journals such as Nature, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review. She’s recognized on the Thinkers50 Radar List, arguably the most prestigious honor for management thinkers.
CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:
[3:05] - “Do Something Important, Not Just Interesting”
Transformative words from a mentor
After decades of witnessing a lack of progress on pervasive problems, a mentor told Ruth: “Do something important, not just interesting.” This inspired Ruth to begin pursuing the qualitative idea of what drives great achievers to achieve their greatest.
[13:41] - Embracing Collaboration
From finance to academia
Ruth speaks fondly of the collaborative mindset that defines academia. There’s less of a dog-eat-dog mentally than there is in other industries. Instead, many people recognize that the more we work together, the more our efforts will be duplicated and expanded upon in creative ways, leading to greater progress for ourselves and others.
[28:08] - Protective of Your Passions
Embracing your desire to do work you care about
Ruth has often approached highly respected scientists and researchers, including Nobel Prize winners, about taking on dean roles. The most common response? “No, thank you. I’m happy in the lab.” It can be easy to fall into the trap of accepting every ‘promotion’ or step up that comes along. But if it’s a step away from what you love, then is it really a step up?
[38:10] - The Four Traits of High Achievers
From Olympians to astronauts
In Ruth’s research, and her book The Success Factor, she’s found that nearly all high achievers have four main traits: they identify their passions, they strategize on how to achieve them, they build and reinforce a strong foundation, and they’re constantly learning— even through informal means. Now the question is: How can you tap into those traits within yourself, starting today?
[50:29] - The Importance of Mentorship
Finding the right ones with the right mindset
As powerful as a great mentor can be, a poor one can be equally damaging. Find mentors you gel with, with whom you can form strong relationships. Who will be willing to put in the time. These relationships can’t be forced, only built organically.
RESOURCES:
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ABOUT THE HOST:
Chris has shown over 21,000 leaders in over 1500 organizations globally how they can discover their secrets of success in a way that meets and beats their organizations specific challenges.
Chris has done this across sector, culture and geography - UBS, HSBC, KPMG & London Underground, legal firms to construction, tech and IT, to retail, facilities to scientific research, police to not for profit, pharmaceutical to SMEs. From the UK National Health Service of 1.4m staff and UK Government to the Red Cross in Myanmar, from Investment banks in London to Middle East Telecoms, from the Chinese Space Program leaders to HR Directors in India and global retail CEOs in Rome.
When he was the Global Head of Leadership at UBS, overseeing a staff of 70,000 across 100 countries, his team helped the bank transform organizational performance to increase profitability by 235%, market capitalization by 50% and win numerous awards. This is now a Harvard Case Study.
Chris has been quoted as a business leadership expert globally in the Harvard Business Review China, FT, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, New York Times, Business Week, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Times of India, Straits & Gulf Times and many others. He judges business awards and has done over 350 TV interviews on leadership and business on BBC, Sky, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, CNBC & CNN. He’s also skied at 60mph by accident.
Learn more about Chris at: ChrisRoebuck.Live
CREDITS:
Ruth Gotian:
But that clearly was not my calling. Clearly I was not passionate about it. And that was really my first inkling that you can be good at something and not enjoy it. And that's okay.
Chris Roebuck:
Welcome to Perspectives from the Top. I'm Chris Roebuck, global keynote speaker with unique leadership experience from military, business and government, bestselling offer and your guy to greater success. Together, we'll discover powerful insights from the world's leading thinkers, doers, and trailblazers, the must know trends, thought provoking revelations and practical actions you can use immediately. This is your exclusive and personal shop of insight and inspiration to help you get to the top.
Chris Roebuck:
Welcome to you and all of our Perspectives from the Top community of listeners across the world. It's great to share the insights of such successful people with you to help you get to where you want to be. Now, our guest today is Ruth Gotian, the chief learning officer and assistant professor of education in anesthesiology and former executive director of the mentoring academy at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Chris Roebuck:
Ruth, started her career in university residency management at NY State and Cornell. After a brief period in international banking, she then moved into academic medical administration, leading the transformation of learning and development for literally thousands of students over 26 years at Weill Cornell. During this period, Ruth gained her PhD in education from Columbia and has also focused in on finding out what makes people high performing and successful to help others achieve the same.
Chris Roebuck:
Now, Ruth, has researched the most successful people, including noble laureates, astronauts, CEOs, and Olympic champions in order to learn about their habits and practices so that we may optimize our own success. And she reveals what she found out in this interview and in her book, The Success Factor. Ruth, regularly publishes in such journals as Nature, Scientific American, Academic Medicine, Psychology Today, Forbes and Harvard Business Review. And she's also recognized in the Thinkers50 Radar List, the Oscars of Management Thinking.
Chris Roebuck:
Ruth, thank you so much for joining us on Perspectives from the Top. Our listeners are really interested to hear what you're going to say as an expert on performance and success and learning. So if we start the story off, one of the things that really interests our listeners is who started you on this journey, somebody that inspired you to take the direction you did as maybe a teacher, family member or mentor. Was there somebody special that perhaps started all of this?
Ruth Gotian:
It was actually decades of watching nothing happening to a pervasive problem and getting really, really frustrated. And I decided to look at the other end of the problem. And my mentor came up to me and he said, he didn't tell me what to do, which is what good mentors do, but he said to me, "Do something important, not just interesting."
Chris Roebuck:
Brilliant.
Ruth Gotian:
And that changed everything.
Chris Roebuck:
Sorry. Where was this mentor, just out of interest?
Ruth Gotian:
So this is Dr. Bert Shapiro. He was in charge of all MD-PhD programs at the National Institutes of Health, which is the governing body of all of our research in the United States. And the problem that I was getting incredibly frustrated with was, and this is actually the same problem we're having around the world today, I was running what's called an MD-PhD program. My students were getting the dual MD and PhD degree simultaneously. These programs have a three, 4% acceptance rate. It's really hard. You need to sacrifice a lot in order to be competitive for these programs. And yet people were leaving halfway through. We were having, not just us, everyone, a retention problem, which was causing a national problem. And everyone was so focused on why people are leaving. And I was more concerned with those who were staying. And I kept having my eye on those at the other end of the spectrum who were so incredible. And I kept wondering what if we can create more of those people? We won't need as many people, because their work would be so much bigger, so much better, so much more impactful.
Ruth Gotian:
So at the age of 43, while working full time and raising my family, I went back to school and I decided to study this, and have not stopped since. I'm older than I look.
Chris Roebuck:
It sounds to me like your mentor deserves some of the blame for this, because you got hooked with what Dr. Shapiro said.
Ruth Gotian:
I really did. And it was interesting, because everyone was trying to create a number to quantify it. And I kept thinking, it's not about the numbers, it's about the people, it's about their why. And that's why I really wanted to do something more qualitative. And with his one sentence of do something important not just interesting, that really changed everything from a local one institutional study to a national study, where I was interviewing Nobel prize winners and institute directors at the National Institutes of Health and the former surgeon general of the United States. And then once I started going, I just couldn't stop. I became addicted.
Chris Roebuck:
But to that degree, we are talking about serious stuff in terms of, in that world, you need a steady flow of clinicians and scientists to get stuff done. We might touch on other industries like financial services. And perhaps the impact of a few less people in financial services is not as significant as a few less people doing MDs and being doctors and clinicians.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. And when I found the four elements of success with the physician scientist, which was my doctoral dissertation work, well, I was fascinated with it. But then the next step was, were the same things I found in those extreme high achievers in that industry, would that translate to other industries? So I started going on a quest to find other extreme high achievers. And I was talking to astronauts and Olympic champions and NBA champions and senior politicians and Fortune 500 CEOs and Tony Award winners. And when I say that I was obsessed with success, I wasn't kidding. And I don't stop. I still continue. I even wrote a book about it.
Chris Roebuck:
Indeed, and we'll come onto your book, success factors. What I find interesting is that you started all of this journey, which is amazing. You started it working in the residency part of New York State of Cornell, helping students basically have a stable environment within which to do their learning by virtue of the residency. And I find that fascinating, because people just talk about the important thing is the course. No, it's not just the course, it's the environment within which the student is able to study that course. And strangely years ago, I was a chairman of student hall at University College London. And the comments from students about how much their environment that they lived in mattered was so significant, and everybody else was just ignoring it.
Chris Roebuck:
So you started there, and that was your first touching onto leadership. Just give our listeners a little bit of an insight into how that as your first experience of leadership molded you into knowing that people needed to have a good environment to study and also for you as a first time leader.
Ruth Gotian:
Well, it's interesting, because I never remember myself not being in a leadership role from being class president in elementary school to whatever it is. There're people who talk and then there're people who do. And I don't like to talk about things, I just like to get things done. We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we talk, but we also have two hands so we can do twice as much. So I always remember myself in leadership roles that the bit about housing really started in a very interesting way. That's not something I even expected. I started at the beginning at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, which is one of our state universities. And I transferred in as a sophomore. I did my freshman year abroad. And the front door to our suite was from wood. And from the heat, there's no air conditioning in student dorms. It expanded and I couldn't close the front door.
Ruth Gotian:
And as a woman, I was not comfortable having the front door not close, especially in a coed dorm. So I put in the appropriate maintenance request, but it's moving weekend, it's me and thousands of others that have maintenance request. And one day goes by, two days go by, three days go by. I said, "This is absolutely ridiculous." So I went with a clipboard and I went door to door to every single suite. I don't know, there were maybe 100 suites in the building. And I said, "What maintenance requests have you put in that were not solved yet?" And I got a list, pages and pages long, and I sent it to the head of housing. That was my introduction. Within 24 hours, my front door closed.
Chris Roebuck:
Love it.
Ruth Gotian:
And I was asked to take on a leadership role within housing, ultimately becoming the president of the Residence Hall Association. And haven't stopped since. That was in 1989.
Chris Roebuck:
It's so cool. It's so cool that actually, we both ended up doing the same thing in a student hall of residence to try and make life better for everybody, because that's the point about seeing the bigger picture. But so all of this journey might not have started if your door had actually fitted?
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. And you can imagine what happened when I was in grad school and I wanted a peephole on my door so I can see who's knocking on my door.
Chris Roebuck:
I can imagine.
Ruth Gotian:
But by then they knew who they were dealing with.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah. I can imagine knowing the academic residency world, that would've taken a lot of signatures and a lot of pieces of paper, just to put a peephole in the door.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. I got it done though.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah. Listen, you then took this career change into financial services, which I love, because-
Ruth Gotian:
Like where did that come from? Right?
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah, I cannot imagine to be blunt. I cannot imagine a more significant cultural change. So tell us, you went into... Where was it? Bank Leumi.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. So my bachelor's and master's were in business. And like all good business students, I have to go into finance-
Chris Roebuck:
You had to go into finance.
Ruth Gotian:
...and international banking. And I did. And I was on this fast track management track. I got tenure in nine months, which is unheard of. There were people there 25 years who didn't get tenure. Anyway, that did not make me their favorite colleague. But what that did teach me was that you can be really good at what you're doing and not enjoy it. So I could do it. There was no question, I could do it. And I did investments and I did import export, but I didn't enjoy it. When I tell you I was dragging my feet to work, I would let that snooze button go off in the morning for an hour. I didn't want to go. I could do it, I liked it, and I loved some of my colleagues who're still friends today 25 years later, but that clearly was not my calling. Clearly I was not passionate about it. And that was really my first inkling that you can be good at something and not enjoy it. And that's okay.
Chris Roebuck:
That's a really interesting point, because that then links into the story of success factors in how you become successful in terms of aligning what you enjoy and what you're good at. But we'll pick that one up later. So you had this. I think you tolerated that for just over a year, I think.
Ruth Gotian:
Two years.
Chris Roebuck:
Two years. Yeah. But even if the work wasn't that challenging, to be blunt coming from the world of academia, the culture must have been a bit of a shock as well.
Ruth Gotian:
Yeah. But you know what? If you can deal with the doggy dog world of finance, you can deal with academia. And I found a lot more collaboration within academia. And that was clearly what I needed. I did not want the siloed world. I wanted a more collaborative nature, which is why to this day, and I'm a faculty member, I try to write with other people and publish with other people, because those best pieces, those best projects, those best papers are where we take my area of expertise and someone else's area of expertise, overlay them on each other and see where we overlap, where is that overlap. And that's what we usually tend to work on and write about. And then we can each bring in expertise from our own world. And that's what makes it so powerful. That's what makes it go viral.
Chris Roebuck:
But that is a really powerful point in that you mentioned the doggy dog world of the financial services world. That really strikes a chord with me, because one of the fundamental elements of my role as global head of leadership at UBS was quite simply to get people to collaborate rather than to dissuade them from trying to stab each other in the back to get up the slippery slope to the top. And-
Ruth Gotian:
Wasn't easy, was it?
Chris Roebuck:
No, it wasn't easy, but bizarrely, once people start... From all the research about change, once you get that first 10, 15% of early adopters starting to do it, and they were going, actually, this is really good, because there are always people out there who are collaborators, and it just snowballed. And that's why it's a Harvard case study. But I think that your comment about academia and wanting to work with people links in again to what you found about how people are successful, because we need other people to help us be successful. So you then went back into the medical world. And what I find interesting is that you stayed there a long time and you've achieved an awful lot over that... What? 20 years, 21?
Ruth Gotian:
27 years, almost.
Chris Roebuck:
27 years, total.
Ruth Gotian:
Total.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah. So tell me-
Ruth Gotian:
And I'm only 39.
Chris Roebuck:
It's just fascinating that somebody stays in a role so long. And somebody like you who is always trying to get things done, when I looked at what you'd achieved, it became clear to me that somehow over that period of time, you'd managed to get challenge after challenge and evolution after evolution to transform the lives of the people, the students and other people you were supporting. Is that what happened?
Ruth Gotian:
So, yes, I stayed, especially with the MD-PhD program for 22 years. And I even had the same boss that entire time. So I think those two things are extremely unusual. But the reason I loved that role so much was that I had the students for seven to eight years. So I really, really got to know them. And every year there was a new crop of students.
Chris Roebuck:
Of course, sorry, because this is an MD program, so it's significantly longer.
Ruth Gotian:
It's MD plus a PhD plus, two degrees. Yeah.
Chris Roebuck:
Plus a PhD. Yeah. So it's not a normal single degree, etc, which is only three years. It's two degrees.
Ruth Gotian:
But what was so fascinating about this program, which I don't know any other job that you can do this, I got to be a specialist in almost every single field in academic medicine and higher education. So I oversaw everything soup to nuts. That's recruitment, admission, student affairs, crisis management, grants, budgets, marketing, alumni affairs, event planning. Everything except for financial aid, I had to know inside and out. And those fields kept expanding and growing. The problem was I was the only one. I don't know that was a problem, I think it was my biggest asset. I was the only one that understood how one of those offices works with the other. And if you make a change in a system of one, how that can impact the other offices, no one else knew that because no one else was working with all of those other offices as intimately as I was.
Ruth Gotian:
So when we created a student information system where these processes needed to talk to each other, I knew that if you change an advisor here, it's going to impact downstream at all these different places. So that to me was fascinating. And I got to work with the most incredible students, the most incredible faculty. And it was during that time to figure out how we can make more of those people that I went back to school to get my doctorate. And from then, it just started to grow and grow. And when the challenges ended there and I literally changed the color of the paint on the wall in order to find a challenge, then I knew it was time to find something else.
Chris Roebuck:
So that's when you did your PhD in education at Columbia then?
Ruth Gotian:
That's correct. But I was still working full time as I was doing it.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah, sure. You don't make life easy for yourself, do you?
Ruth Gotian:
I'm not very good at being idol.
Chris Roebuck:
No. But, listen, I find that the points that came out of that are really interesting. The criticality of if you're going to make something work well, you need to understand the big picture and not just the person that's in charge, the people that are leading the different parts of the big picture need to understand the big picture. And that goes back to the fundamental challenge that all organizations have of people thinking in silos, not whole organization. I think that's a beautiful point, and it's an indictment of academia and most other sectors that I've been involved in that very, very few people see that big picture. And that vastly restricts performance. But it also to your point about constant change in development, it fundamentally restricts the ability to change and transform, because of that ripple effect that you spoke about. You change something in one place, and there is an unseen ripple in another place that the people in that little silo don't even think about.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. They don't even know that they should be thinking about it. But that really became apparent to me when we created that student information system, and people just didn't understand how things just were interwoven with each other and how all of these exceptions could impact so many people's work. So when I started getting involved in every single one of those meetings, that's really when it was solidified in my mind.
Chris Roebuck:
That's really interesting over the years. One of the things I've done, example the UBS case, I got all the heads of learning and development from the different divisions together and said, "Tell me what you are doing for different levels of your people." And we did a big matrix on the wall, this is what we are doing here, this is what we are doing for the most senior, this is what we are doing for talented people. And in the end, there was a matrix that was a picture of what was going on in the organization for learning and development from bottom to top.
Chris Roebuck:
Nobody had ever done that before. And what that big picture did was it revealed that there were gaps, there were risks, it revealed that there were duplications, it revealed where there was opportunity that nobody had recognized, because everybody was only looking at their own part of the picture. To all our listeners, I just think if you are in a role where you can coordinate an overview of the big picture and get people to understand it better, just to do it for everybody's sanity.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. And you'll see where there's duplication of effort and you'll see where there are people who have creative ideas, you'll see how other people can learn from those ideas and piggyback on them, you'll see what other types of output you can create from it. The possibilities are limitless.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah. And it just takes a little bit of time to go out up to helicopter view and just see what the jigsaw looks like as a picture, rather than a set of pieces of a jigsaw. So that's fascinating and some really great ideas for our listeners there.
Chris Roebuck:
Now, you have been in that medical world for a very long time, and you obviously understand it totally, but a lot of our listeners have never been in that world. And it's really interesting. I spent a couple of years in the UK National Health Service, helping them build a leadership development strategy, actually, and the talent identification strategy, because 1.4 million staff, they had no idea where their talent was or who their talent was. But within the context of a medical environment, you have different groups of people. You have the management group, you have the clinicians. And how leadership operates within that environment, I find really interesting, because what I saw was clinicians being promoted on the basis of their clinical ability, not their leadership ability, to some degree.
Chris Roebuck:
Talk to us about, so our listeners understand better, what goes on in that clinical type environment around how people work together, how leadership develops, etc, because it's not the same as a business environment, is it?
Ruth Gotian:
Not at all. And it's very interesting. And it's not just academic medicine, it's really all of higher education. So if we were to have a professor, let's say a teacher, a K through 12 teacher, kindergarten through 12th grade, they go through schooling to learn that particular subject, they do student teaching, somebody's observing them, and they have to get this credential. And if you want to become a principal, there's other credentials that you need to get.
Ruth Gotian:
But in higher education, which includes academic medicine, it's not like that. If you have many high impact papers, which are cited often what we call an H factor, if you have a lot of grants and bring in there for a lot of funding to the institution, that is what they are looking at. So if you look at the people who are actually promoted more often, they have to make up their time in different ways and their salary. So it's not the people who have ever led or had management skills. They may not even know aside from their own grants how to balance big budgets. They are learning it all through on the job training. Very few of them have MBAs.
Ruth Gotian:
Very often, they are now going to some professional development workshops and courses for new deans or new chairs or whatever it is, because all of a sudden, they now need to manage people time and space, where in the past, they just had to manage their own time space and maybe the people in the lab or the people in their group. But they are all learning through trial and error, which is different from other institutions, especially those where you're getting those advanced degrees, where we learn how to manage budgets and forecasts and all of those things.
Chris Roebuck:
And just for our listeners, so what Ruth was saying is that the key performance criteria for those in that world is how many academic study papers they write on different subjects that are perceived to be a really good study. And the more of those, basically, the more you write, the more you get promoted, but the ability to write an academic paper as Ruth has indicated, does not mean you are good at running an institution, which was the fundamental challenge.
Ruth Gotian:
Of every institution. It's not just writing a lot of papers. You have to write a lot of papers, be either the first or last author, write in high impact journals and make sure people are citing your work in their work. So it's a whole domino effect, but it's really all dependent on your research. Now, what's fascinating is there's a dean position open. And actually, I reached out to a Nobel Prize winner who I know and have a lot of respect for. And I said, "Are you interested in being the dean?" And he said, "No." I said, "Why not?"
Chris Roebuck:
I knew you were going to say that, but tell me why. I can guess why, but tell our listeners why.
Ruth Gotian:
He said, "I've never been a dean, I've never been a chair, I've never been a president, I just run my lab. I love my science and my research so much that I don't want to be bogged down in administration." And it's interesting. I recommended the dean role to other people who I really respect as people, as scientists, as clinicians and the best scientists. They kept saying, "I just love what I'm doing, I'm so knee deep in my science, I don't want to give up any time in order to do administration."
Chris Roebuck:
But that's so beautiful and it reflects your earlier point about you being passionate about what you do, and you don't want to be diverted from that. And strangely, if we go back to the world of financial services, I know of people who've been very senior in banks, who have been in the C-suite of international banks, who, for example, have come from a private banking background or a trading background, and they've put up with being C-suite and being in meetings and organizing this. And after a year, I can think of one in particular said, "I've had enough of this, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to run private banking worldwide. I actually want to work with clients again, not be in meetings." And this individual was made chairman. So he could go off and talk to people rather than look at spreadsheets. And he just loved it. He said, "This is a weight off my mind. I can do what I love now, which is help people."
Ruth Gotian:
That's right. And it's interesting. The former superintendent, which is the president of the United States Military Academy at West Point, when he retired from the military, he was a general. He went to become the president of a university. I think it was the University of South Carolina. And he left after a short tenure. And he said it was easier going to war than it is being the president of a university. And I think it's not for the week.
Chris Roebuck:
That's a good thing. So you then took over as assistant dean, executive director of your mentoring academy, you were the chief learning officer anesthesiology, you got the PhD from Columbia. So you are a catalyst for people in terms of their learning development and growth, but that is so important to people. But one of the things I've noticed is that in different organizations, different areas of life, the value that is attached to helping people learn, grow and develop is different.
Chris Roebuck:
So in your world, in the medical world, everybody gets it, because let's face it, if you are on an operating table and you're about to have an operation, you really want the guy who's doing the operation to know what they're doing, or the lady that's doing it. If you are about to get on a flight to Heathrow in London, you want the guy who's flying the plane or the lady that's flying the plane to actually know what they're doing. So within those, and even in IT, to a degree and law, there are those jobs where the growth learning and development is an accepted part of the job. But if you then look out more widely into other jobs where that historically has not happened, I've seen the degree to which organizations are serious about helping people learn, grow, and develop is actually significantly less than those where it is a cultural necessity, so to speak.
Ruth Gotian:
Yeah, it's so true. And doing it within academic medicine is challenging, because they don't have control over their time. So I'm embedded within the department of anesthesiology. There's a case in the operating room, they can't leave the patient on the table, excuse me, I have to learn how to overcome [inaudible 00:31:56].
Chris Roebuck:
I've got seminar to go to, I'll be back in a while.
Ruth Gotian:
Right. I'll be back in an hour. We can't do that.
Chris Roebuck:
No.
Ruth Gotian:
So we have to really find more creative ways to reach people where they are and do things on the go. And remember they have gone, healthcare workers have had the most challenging two and a half years, really unbelievably challenging, really scarred. There is an alarming exit-
Chris Roebuck:
Yes, I've seen the figures.
Ruth Gotian:
...on the healthcare field.
Chris Roebuck:
Significant departures.
Ruth Gotian:
So what we are focusing on within learning and development is really to bring them back to the baseline, and then we can help get them to thrive. But everything that we knew, we are now having to rethink.
Chris Roebuck:
Yeah. I think to our listeners, it's interesting when you look at what happened in COVID. From what I've seen somewhere along the lines of pretty much 20% of people were able to carry on pretty much in terms of what they were doing before, because their jobs didn't contain a significant transmission risk. So onsite construction, for example. 30% who were in high risk situations, hospitality, retail, etc, they were furloughed or made redundant. Those in the office environment who could remote, which was another 30% in UK, and pretty much the same in the states remotely. But then there was that additional 20% of essential workers, including your colleagues in medicine, bus drivers, emergency services, who had to carry on irrespective of the risks.
Chris Roebuck:
And you're absolutely right, the stress that presented to those in those high risk jobs over those two years has had a dramatic effect on their lives, on their careers. The reason I'm mentioning it is because those who were in the other 80%, who didn't suffer that need to appreciate the sacrifice that those people gave... I did an interview with Claire Mann who used to be head of London's 11,000 buses running through franchise companies. And she said she dreaded going into work, because she never knew when she was going to get a note that said, we've lost another one of our drivers. They lost over 60. And I just think, yeah, sorry, I'm passionate about this, because I think those who weren't in that essential worker group need to appreciate the sacrifices that were made.
Ruth Gotian:
Yeah, absolutely. And remember a lot of the healthcare workers, and I'll take the anesthesiologist as an example, they were literally on the front of the frontline, they were intubating patients, they were wearing their mask and their shields and all their covers. And now, we're getting wave after wave after wave. This is just not finishing. And if you ask them, okay, so did you go out this weekend? They said, "I just really don't want to wear a mask." They're still wearing mask 24/7 at work, every minute they have to wear a mask. They say, "I can't, I need a break, I just need a break."
Ruth Gotian:
So the social aspect has very much changed, even though they were at work, they couldn't sit and eat together during their break. It's take your food and eat by yourself in your office. So we were all doing parallel play. We were all there, just people were just not interacting in the same way.
Chris Roebuck:
I think so. To be honest, from myself and all of our listeners, please accept our thanks for what you and your colleagues did during COVID, because we just cannot understand what you went through on our behalf. So please accept those thoughts.
Ruth Gotian:
It's really what they did. I was just there to support them in any way that I can. It was really the physicians who did an unbelievable job and are still doing it.
Chris Roebuck:
So one of the things that the whole point of Perspectives from the Top is to help people grow and develop by hearing what other people have done and to put that into practice. So if we lead onto your book, success factors, you have looked, as you alluded to earlier at some of the most successful people you could imagine, science, medicine, sport, politics, people on Broadway. And I've identified areas that are common in terms of that vast diversity of what people do, but then leads to success.
Chris Roebuck:
So really it would be great for you to give us some insight into why you decided to write the book, what you found are those key factors, and were there any surprises along the way that you discovered things that you weren't expecting?
Ruth Gotian:
Absolutely. So the book is called The Success Factor, and it's really about the four elements of success that I found in all the extreme high achievers, the Nobel Prize winners, the astronauts, the Olympic champions. And once I realized the Nobel Prize winning scientist is identical in mindset to the Olympic champion figure skater and the astronaut and the CEO, that's when I realized, and it confirmed my belief that success can be learned. So I have been doing this research for years and years.
Ruth Gotian:
And as I said, it really started from my doctoral days, doctoral studies days. And there were four things that I found. The first one is, remember my banking story, all of the extreme high achievers found what they were passionate about. The reason they wake up in the morning, the reason they can't quiet their mind at night, the fire in their belly, this is why they were put on this earth. That's number one. You have to find that first. When you find that, you are going to outwork everybody. And that's the second one. And it's not about putting in 18 hour days, because that's just not sustainable. Really what it is how the high achievers view and overcome challenges.
Ruth Gotian:
You see, Chris, they never question. If they will overcome the challenge. They know that they will. They'll get over it, under it, around it, through it, they'll get to the other side. Instead, they focus on how. And they ask themselves, what is the strategy I have not thought of yet? And that is the second one.
Ruth Gotian:
Now, the third one is they have this strong foundation, which they're constantly reinforcing. What worked for them early in their career, they are doing again later in their career. It's always back to those same basic skills. And last but not least, and this is the one that really surprised me is that all the extreme high achievers are constantly learning. And they're learning it through informal means. So we've heard of the billionaires, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban. We know they read three to eight hours a day. It's not reading that made them billionaires. That's why we cannot copy other people's habits. We need to focus on mindsets. For them, it's reading, but really what they were doing, their mindset is opening their mind up to new knowledge. So what are some of the ways that we can open our minds up to new knowledge? Well, you can read, you can read books, you can read articles, you can listen to podcasts. Hopefully, we're sharing some good stuff here today.
Chris Roebuck:
Yes, absolutely.
Ruth Gotian:
Webinars, YouTube, LinkedIn learning courses. I have thousands of people who have watched my LinkedIn learning courses. There's so many ways that you can learn new things, and you can also talk to people. Now, one of the things that all the high achievers had is they talked to people on a regular basis. Specifically, they surrounded themselves with a team of mentors. These are people who believed in them more than they believed in themselves, and that's what they all had. So these are the four elements of success that everyone from the astronaut to the Olympian had.
Chris Roebuck:
And that's really, really simple. So it's effectively passion. You believe in what you are doing, so your purpose in doing it. It's about having what I would describe as an agile mindset to think about, okay, we have a problem, how can we get round? It's to utilize your successful techniques that you've had in the past, but also be constantly open to learning new things, because we live in a world that's constantly changing. Is that a good summary?
Ruth Gotian:
That's perfect. And really you want to learn from people who are different than you. So if you're very insular and always surrounding yourself with people who do what you do where you do it, you're only going to have one way of thinking. You need to find these new ways of approaching people, of connecting with people. Look, the checklist that we have in hospitals were developed by the Air Force. Airline pilots used them. They used checklists, and that's what is now used in operating rooms across the world. It's innovation that was actually borrowed from another industry. But in order to do that, someone from medicine had to talk to someone from the Air Force and to airline pilots.
Ruth Gotian:
You need to be able to communicate with people who are different than you, who are from other industries than you. And I think a lot of people have that challenge of how to initiate conversations with strangers, which is why I offer in The Success Factor so many ways that people should actually do that, how to initiate that conversation, whether you are meeting them in a conference or in the airport or in a Zoom room. There are different ways that you can meet people.
Chris Roebuck:
But your point about the importance of diversity, one of the things that I repeatedly and probably add nauseam for some people bang on about is the whole concept of diversity of thought and within organization. So if we take the financial services, it's okay. So we want to introduce diversity to this particular part of the organization. Yeah. Okay. Introduce people from minorities and all the rest of it. But one of the most diverse things you can do is to take somebody from a totally different part of the organization, and this is why to your point, and it's probably in your book, one of the things I recommend to leaders, in fact, if I'm doing a keynote speech somewhere, it's actually a pretty firm requirement that I want them, is to do lunch and learn sessions, which is just too simply.
Chris Roebuck:
And for you listeners who don't know what lunch and learn sessions are, it's essentially you as a leader, think of somebody who could come and talk to your team from a different part of the organization to talk about what they do, how they do it, what their challenges are and how your people and their people could work better together to break down silos, as we have said, to see the big picture and you do the same for them. And it takes a lunchtime. And at the end of that lunchtime, your people are saying, "Wow, I didn't know that, that's really interesting, now I understand them better. And actually, I think my boss is genuinely interested in me, because they actually set up a lunch and learn session." And I just think to your point about just keeping it so simple and practical works.
Ruth Gotian:
Absolutely. And it's so critical that we get out of our silos and really learn how other people are working. What are their pain points? What are the things that are coming a little too easily, because that's an opportunity for enhancement. But the only way that you will know that is if you actually talk to people in other industries and also other departments. So my mentoring team, I always say I was patient zero with The Success Factor. I have physicians and scientists and educators and military and finance and law. That's it. Six different industries on my mentoring team.
Ruth Gotian:
When I wrote the book proposal for The Success Factor, I actually showed it to my mentor, Dr. Marie Volpe, who happened to be my doctoral advisor. She had written multiple books. She knew exactly how to put together a book proposal. I did not show it to the lawyer who had never written a book. But when I had to negotiate the contract, who do you think I showed it to? That's the lawyer.
Chris Roebuck:
So it goes to the point that we've had from various people before, be it Lord Stephen Green, ex-chairman, chief executive of HSBC, government minister, to Mathias Imbach, CEO of the first digital bank to Andy Byford who runs all of London's transport and deep New York's MTA. And the moral of the story is get yourself a good mentor. And note, what I'm going to say now, everyone listening, that does not just apply to you if you are in C-suite or the two levels below. That applies to everybody, is that a fair comment, Ruth?
Ruth Gotian:
I think you need a team of mentors and you need a coach. You should have both.
Chris Roebuck:
So, if we now think that many of the people listening are not in senior leadership roles, they may be in middle management roles, their first leadership role, maybe their organization doesn't have a mentoring program and having put in many mentoring programs in organizations. There is, dare I say it, an unfortunate tendency amongst organizations to invest such resources only in the people at the top, because you don't want to upset them, and only in people who are identified as talent, because that's where your investment is, but forget everybody else. If you happen to be in a group that isn't C-suite or isn't defined as talent, what should you try and do Ruth from your perspective?
Ruth Gotian:
Make your own mentoring team. You do not have to wait, and you should not wait for it to be handed to you on a silver platter. So there's different levels of people you need on your mentoring team, different types of people you need on your mentoring team. And, in fact, I write a lot about it in The Success Factor, but if your listeners want a worksheet as to how to quickly start identifying who should be on their mentoring team-
Chris Roebuck:
That would be great.
Ruth Gotian:
...and how to approach them, they can just go to my website. You download for free ruthgotian.com/mentoringteam, one word, and you'll get, it looks like a bullseye, a mentoring team worksheet, how to identify your goal, how to identify your plan, how to identify who should be on your mentoring team. And then there are all these subsequent articles that I've written about how to approach people. And I'll give you a hint. Never ask someone to be a mentor, because the second you're asking them to be your mentor, you're asking them to take on another obligation. Instead, ask them for their perspective, because if they're going to be your mentor, they need to know like and trust you. And that needs to be earned.
Chris Roebuck:
That's a beautiful point. And also to be honest, I've seen in organizations when there is a mentoring program set up between perhaps talented/high potential people and senior leadership, there is always a rush for somebody to be mentored by the CEO. The assumption being that if you are mentored by the CEO, it is going to be the greatest mentoring experience in the world. In fact, you don't care if it's the greatest mentoring experience in the world, because you think if you are mentor by the CEO, your career is set for life.
Chris Roebuck:
The reality of how the world works, Ruth, as you will no doubt confirm from your experience, is that merely because someone happens to be a senior leader does not necessarily mean they are a really good mentor. Tell us more from your experience.
Ruth Gotian:
No. Look, their mentoring is probably based on their own mentoring experience. They might be too busy, they might not get back to you, they might become very possessive. In fact, my good friends, Vineet Chopra and Sanjay Saint wrote one of the best articles I've ever read about the negative side of mentoring. It's called Mentorship Malpractice. It was in JAMA. And they talk about the negative parts of mentoring.
Ruth Gotian:
Now, the problem is when you have this negative mentoring or what we call marginal mentoring, which is sort of vanilla, not great, not bad, it's just there, as a result, what happens is that you are less likely to seek out a mentor later on. Now, this is problematic, because there's a lot of research on the benefits of mentoring. And those who are mentored out earn and outperform those who are not. They get higher raises, more promotion, lower burnout. There's a ton of research on this.
Ruth Gotian:
But that means they need a good mentor. And the CEOs may not have the time, may not know how, may not have the right personality. You need to find people who you gel with. You need to develop relationships. They need to know like and trust you. And you need to know like and trust them. And that comes with time. But if you can't get time with that person, because they're so busy, it doesn't make a difference. They are not opening their contact list to you, because they don't even know you.
Ruth Gotian:
I get people asking me all the time, can you introduce me to this NBA champion, to this Olympian, to this Snowball prize winner? I don't even know you. Why would I give you their email? And this is the same thing that happens with mentorship.
Chris Roebuck:
It is really fascinating that there is a depth and a nuance to what you are saying about mentoring, that the theoretical stuff that most people think exists, it is it isn't covered by that. It's those simple practicalities. It's like your four success factors that are not within theory. It's practical stuff about, I'm passionate about this, I want to beat these challenges, I can utilize some of the skills I've had before and constantly learning.
Chris Roebuck:
Years ago I met a guy called Sir George Schulte, Maestro Schulte, who was a Hungarian conductor who was known throughout the world. And he was in his early 80s. And he was talking about music and learning. And he said, "What I love every day that when I'm working with an orchestra, I'm particularly a new orchestra. I'm learning every day. And that's what makes me want to do it even more." And you think, hang on, this guy is a Maestro, he's one of the greatest conductors in the world. He's in his 80s and he's telling me he's still learning every day.
Ruth Gotian:
That's right.
Chris Roebuck:
What can you say?
Ruth Gotian:
High achievers do. That's what the high achievers do. They're continuously learning. That's the fourth element.
Chris Roebuck:
So for some of the listeners out there who are maybe in your early 30s, coming up 40s, and have the sneaking suspicion that due to the success you have already achieved, you might know it all, I'm sorry, ruth will tell you, you don't.
Ruth Gotian:
You don't know what you don't know. And that's why you need to constantly learn. Whenever you're in a room, you want to be the least impressive person in the room always.
Chris Roebuck:
It's just so true. So, Ruth, what next for you?
Ruth Gotian:
Well, there might be another book on the horizon. I think I still have a few more books in me. And lots of keynote about it. And look, my job is to make people successful. And I am honored that I get to help people do that every single day.
Chris Roebuck:
And the advice you've given to our listeners will certainly help anybody listening. And for our listeners, I suggest that without doubt, you listen to this podcast, at least once and take a few notes. And in a week's time, I'll be giving a reflection that summarizes all the key points you've made. Then how can people find out more about you and The Success Factor?
Ruth Gotian:
Sure. So, look, my website has all kinds of information on there, including links to Forbes and Psychology Today, where I write a lot. There's also a ton of free resources. So just go to Ruth Gotian, G-O-T-I-A-N, .com. And if you want to know where to get the book anywhere in the world, just go to ruthgotian.com/book. It'll give you Amazon links all over the world, Barnes & Noble, Target, Walmart, independent bookstores, wherever you'd like to shop.
Chris Roebuck:
And I think the book is really powerful, because it covers not only those four factors, but it also covers the mechanics around making it work, the mentoring, etc. And people often say to me, how do you become an effective leader? I think one of the most important things that you focused on is that if you have that foundation, that those things that are your success factors are being practiced yourself, then it means that you are more likely to be an effective leader. Is that a fair comment?
Ruth Gotian:
Fair, very fair. You have to practice. And I tell people I was patient zero.
Chris Roebuck:
It's absolutely super. Finally then, from everything you've learned and everything you've seen, what would be one thing that you would say to a developing leader out there? One or two things, I'll give you two things that they should do to make them better? Or if someone's not a leader, how can they be a better colleague?
Ruth Gotian:
Well, first, they need to read The Success Factor, which will teach them all about that. But I want to lead them with two tips, which really came through, not just from my mentor, but through all of the research that I've done speaking to hundreds of people. The one is, first one, do something important not just interesting. Now, I told you my mentor Dr. Bert Shapiro told me that, but Dr. Tony Fauci, who leads all of our infectious disease here in the United States, he actually said the same thing to me when I asked him how he picks the projects. He said, "I do what's important, not just interesting." So, that's two people who said that to me. The second thing is all of the high achievers they fear not trying more than they fear failing. Fear not trying more than you fear failing. I'll leave everyone with that.
Chris Roebuck:
That is absolutely superb. And that's what it's about. Life is about trying and learning from that. Ruth, thank you so much for your absolutely amazing journey, your story, and what you've achieved, how you've helped so many people. And you've just helped significantly more in 60 countries across the world by giving us your contribution. So thank you very much.
Ruth Gotian:
My honor. Thank you.
Chris Roebuck:
Well, listeners, there certainly is a lot there to reflect on and a lot there that you can do something about tomorrow. Just that simple idea of not only doing something interesting, but also doing something important. The whole principle of broadening your mindset through talking to people who have had different experiences to yourself, to develop your diversity of thought, and to help you do that, to seek out a mentor or mentors.
Chris Roebuck:
Now, those four key attributes of the most successful people, the passion, the agility of thinking to get around challenges and beat them, the utilization of previous experience to make things work successfully, but the acceptance of the need for constant learning to broaden your experience base and respond to the dynamic world that we live in. And, of course, the fundamental point that if you get your mindset right, everything else will follow. I suppose it's also worth saying that there is significantly more detail on how to make this happen in Ruth's book, The Success Factor.
Chris Roebuck:
So maybe just think about the challenges that you currently face and ask yourself, are there people you know who you could ask for their perspectives on it, who could possibly help you grow and develop? And if so, go and ask them. So think about how you can use some of Ruth's ideas to help you get to where you want to be. And don't forget that in a week, I will give you a more in depth view of the key takeaways from Ruth, my insights, and three ideas for actions in my reflections on the top.
Chris Roebuck:
And if you've used any of the insights you've got from previous Perspectives from the Top guests and they've helped you, send me your success stories. I've had some great ones in, and I just love to hear them. Also, don't forget to sign up on the website so you don't miss any of the future great guests over the next few months.
Chris Roebuck:
Thanks for tuning in. Check out the show notes from today's episodes at perspectivesfromthetop.com where you cannot only enjoy additional resources from today's show, but all previous ones. If you haven't already, subscribe to the show on Spotify app or wherever you get your favorite podcast so you don't miss any. And if you really enjoyed the show, please give us a five star rating and review. Have a question or comment? Let's discuss it. Message me on LinkedIn.
Chris Roebuck:
Perspectives from the Top is produced in collaboration with Detroit Podcast Studios. So have a successful week. Use today's new learnings and actions. And remember, it's onwards and upwards. See you next time on Perspectives from the Top.