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Steve Longan has been with Rewire since the very beginning—wearing many hats during its startup years. These days, he serves as Director of Research and Development, where he designs programs that help clients close the gap between where they are and where they want to be. He’s exceptionally good at it. In recent years, Steve has also become a sought-after coach, known for his depth, insight, and the powerful impact he has on the people he works with. Clients often describe their work with him as transformational. He’s taken his strengths in research-informed coaching and brought them into the classroom, leading Rewire’s coaching skills courses for leaders.

Outside of work, Steve is focused on soaking up as much time as possible with his kids, sneaking in time to run, and always keeping a good book nearby. He’s deeply grateful for the chance to do meaningful work that helps people grow—at the deepest level.

 

In this episode, Jason and Steve discuss:

  • Recognizing the limits of past strategies for future leadership growth
  • Common challenges successful individuals face when pursuing new goals
  • Value of stakeholder feedback and openness to behavioral change in leadership
  • Use of visualization and storytelling to uncover and eliminate limiting behaviors
  • Strategies for aligning actions with personal vision to drive continued success

Key Takeaways:

  • What once worked may no longer serve future goals, emphasizing the need for leaders to evolve past old strategies in order to grow.
  • High performers often resist changing the very behaviors that initially brought them success, leading to stagnation and frustration.
  • Feedback from trusted stakeholders isn’t just helpful—it’s essential; by opening up to different perspectives, leaders can uncover blind spots and adapt with intention.
  • Through imaginative tools like time machine visualizations, leaders can clarify their aspirations and begin bridging the gap between current habits and future goals.
  • Unchecked traits like perfectionism or micromanagement can hinder growth, but targeted behavior change has the power to unlock greater impact and freedom.

 

 


“We're coaching the people who are going to get it. We're coaching the people who have succeeded in the past. The issue is that past success does not predict what will be required at the next level. And so we end up taking the things that we did that have made us successful so far. And we think that those are the exact same things that we need to do in the future. And when you step into executive leadership, that next level, they're just not.”

 - Steve Longan

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Steve Longan- What Got You Here Won't Get You There

All right, hello and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abell, and I've got a special guest. A guest that if you've been listening to the podcast for any period of time is a familiar one to you, and the reason that he's familiar is for a couple of reasons. One, he was on the podcast in the beginning of 2021. Two, it was one of the most downloaded podcast episodes that we have, so we revisited that same episode in 2023. And thirdly, you've probably heard us mention this fellow on the podcast once or twice, and it's none other than Steve Longan. Steve Longan is the Director of Research and Development here at Rewire. He's one of our most popular, most famous, and I mean that, I'm not saying that jokingly, but certainly just an incredibly skilled coach. But Longan, I could go on and on about the accolades for you. You hold more degrees than I have fingers, and I really could go on and on.

Oh stop, oh stop.

 

But anyways, without further ado, Steve Longan, welcome to the show.

Yeah, yeah. I'm really glad to have this conversation, and the thing I say about Rewire is hopefully we are a community of coaches that are having lots of interesting conversations that then spill out to our organizations and clients, so I'm excited to have a conversation that just sort of goes out to people listening to the podcast.

Oh man, I have a feeling that that's going to happen. You and I have a topic in mind, and I think we're going to dive into that topic, but who knows where the conversation is going to go? Like it could go all kinds of different places, but you know our opening question.

Yeah.

And we've asked it more than a few 100 times, and today's going to be no different. As you and I engage one another, I'm on the East Coast, you're on the West Coast, but through the magic of technology and Zoom and all that is streaming these days, I'd love to know who or what are you particularly grateful for this morning, Longan?

Yeah, man, well, I've got a delicious cup of coffee from a local roaster called Heart. There's a little local roaster in town called Heart and when I got the coffee, I also asked for the mug, so for those of you listening, I have a heart mug in front of me. So delicious coffee. Really grateful for my boys. My youngest designed a video game that he coded himself, and then he showed it off to his fourth-grade class and now the class is playing the game together, and they're having little tournaments with the video game that he designed.

Wow.

So, they're having fun. They're having a ton of fun. And then my oldest plays a lot of soccer. He plays with the Portland Timbers Developmental Academy, and he got injured, and he's worked really, really hard to be back. And so, he had his first game after a long time this past weekend, and he just, he did great. And you know, I mean, as a parent, watching your kids running around have fun, use their gifts like it's really rewarding. So yeah, I'd say that.

Delicious coffee and your boys. Fun way to start.

Right?

I feel like now we can start. That was a good place to start. For those of you that have listened for any time, we've used the term clearing the space. I feel like we're both like, man, we've got solid footing, and we can have a real good conversation now. You know, you are kind of known as the academic on our team. You know, I kidded around about your degrees ahead of time, but you really are learner man, and one of the things that I find fascinating about you is you bring the academic, the research and development, the book smart, into a very practical working way at Rewire, and I've noticed that whenever I've done group work with you, or even how you coach us internally, and even some of the exercises that you help us with when we're getting ready to do workshops and things like that, and you came up with this topic last week, when we were kind of pinging around different subjects that you and I could hit on during this conversation, and you said this one, and it was like, both of us were like, yep, that's it. And it's just this idea of, you know, what got you here, won't get you there and I think both of us had the same like, yeah, can we talk more about that? Because we just have clients on the regular that are dealing with that, and you have this way about you have weaving in what the research says, but also what you're seeing on the ground level. So, I don't know. That's enough prep for me. Why did you pick that topic?

Yeah, well, so at Rewire, again, we are hopefully having these really meaningful conversations about core dynamics that undergird growth at an individual and organizational level. And so, the coaches at Rewire, we're going through Marshall Goldsmiths “What Got You Here Won't Get You There” as a group.

Sure.

And so, because as a group of coaches, we're talking about it, I thought this would be interesting to talk through. This dynamic of what got you here won't get you there, it shows up a lot. And so, when we coach people who are looking to make the jump into the SVP or make the jump into the C suite, talk to people who are business owners, when we coach them and they're thinking about, well, what does the next iteration of my business look like, this dynamic shows up again and again. It also shows up just for those of you out there who have read “Immunity to Change” by Lisa Leahy and Robert Kagan, this same dynamic shows up in their work when they talk about “Immunity to Change”. This whole need to recognize that what got us to a certain point may or may not get us to the next point?

Yeah.

So we’re sort of seeing it everywhere. So that's why I was excited to talk about it, because it shows up in a lot of coaching sessions and a lot of organizations.

Well, I see it too. I can't tell you the number of clients that I've had personally or I've talked to our coaches about and you know, there is this thing that happens with a lot of people in business, where they're successful early on in their career, or they might have caught lightning in a bottle and formed this organization and it shot the moon, but then there's this plateau thing that happens. And sometimes I see leaders, or the people that we coach, they really just, and I’m going to use an analogy here, but they grip the steering wheel harder and grit their teeth a little more and push on the gas, the same gas pedal that they've been pushing on a little harder, and they're still plateauing. Like, it's not happening. And there's frustration that comes along with that, and sometimes anger and other things, but I'm glad we're hitting on this because I think to dig into the topic and then maybe solution it a little bit and come up with possibilities of things to think about would be helpful.

Yeah, yeah. So, the way that it looks is very much like that. It looks like pushing past the point of diminishing returns, and I'll give a just an easy example. So, there's an individual, they are an excellent engineer, and the way that they build the things that they design, their contributions to the organization in terms of what they have designed, if, let's say it's a product that they've had a hand in building, they're an excellent engineer, they get promoted to lead the engineering team for a given, let's say product or category, okay?

Sure.

A temptation, and what happens over and over again is for them to bring their same approach and mentality that they used with engineering to leadership.

Yes.

And both the organization and the individual have to recognize that there is a fundamental difference between the contributions that you made at one level and the contributions that you're going to need to make at the next level.

True.

And in one sense, that's great job security for you and me, because we get brought in to help those people and to elevate those people and t hat's wonderful, yeah, but that is the basic problem, is that the way of engaging at one level that gives success is not the same as what will be required at the next level. And Goldsmith actually brings this up, that the problem with the people that we coach is they're successful.

Yeah.

So we're not working with people who are falling down on the job, who aren't producing good work, who haven't gotten anywhere. Like, we're coaching the go getters.

Yeah.

We're coaching the people who are going to get it. We're coaching the people who have succeeded in the past. The issue is that the past success does not predict what will be required at the next level. And so we end up taking the things that we did that have made us successful so far, and we think that those are the exact same things that we need to do in the future. And when you step into executive leadership that next level, they're just not.

Oh, I can't tell you the number of times we see the individual contributor that's outstanding gets promoted, just like you said, and now they're in charge of people and they try to do what they did at the individual contributor level, just bigger, better, greater, whatever, and it's just a different skill set. I can't tell you the number of HR people, CEOs, where I tell this dynamic to, just like you said, and they're all like, yeah, exactly. Like, they get it, right? And it is different. And so, yeah, I am even more glad that we're diving into this topic based on how we've started here so far. So, Longan, we've established the dynamic, the phenomenon. What do we do about it though?

What do we do about it? Okay, well honestly, the first step is the recognition that it's a problem.

Yeah.

If we're working with people and they're not recognizing that it's a problem, it's an awareness issue. So, the first most important thing is to see it for what it is. And if we follow the Goldsmith pattern, and I really want to highlight his work, what got you here won't get you there; it's not quite Seven Habits of Highly Effective People in terms of its standing, but it's referenced a lot. And so, one of the things that comes out of that work, essentially, is the importance of stakeholders and people around the leader. So, when we think about what got you here, won't get you there, one of the most important things is the community around the leader. So, for people saying, well, okay, I'm not getting the results that I want, or I feel like I'm ineffective in my role as a leader, the first step is to start talking with people and ask them what they see. Now, that that could be your coach. Your coach is actually going to direct you to talk to other stakeholders, so that could be someone else on the C suite, that could be someone above you, that could be the people who report to you, that could be your peers, but one of the first things to do is to get some feedback from the people who are around you.

Yeah, so awareness. Yep, that's 100% a big deal. We'd run across a lot of leaders, and you can attest to this, Steve, maybe there that is what's happening, but they're not aware of it. And so, what types of things do you if you're seeing this plateau or the frustration that we're talking about? And what precedes awareness? Like if we, as the coaches or maybe stakeholders or maybe customers or maybe competitors or whatever sees this, but the individual or the organization doesn't see it, how do they become aware of it?

Yeah. So, it always shows up in the challenges that are presented to us. So if there are no problems, if there are no challenges, if there is no other place for the organization to grow, if they have reached sort of the zenith and the final stage and state of their organization, then they're doing great. I'll ask this question sometimes, I call it the Time Machine question, and I'll ask this to people who are coming into coaching or people who are looking to hire us to work with their organization, so you can take it at an individual or an organizational level. And I'll say, hey, I want you to imagine that it is six months, nine months in the future, and your organization is exactly the same as it is right now. So, your team's KPIs look exactly the same as they do right now, your team's productivity looks exactly the same as it does right now, the meetings that you're having look exactly the same, the problems that you're working with are exactly the same, the metrics that you're hitting, the goals that you're hitting, the size of your team, the amount of time that you're spending in meetings, the projects that you're working on, they're exactly the same. I want you to imagine that you get to nine months from now, you step out of a time machine, and everything is exactly the same. Feel good about that?

Most would probably say no.

Right. If they say yes, then I have no way to help them, because what they're saying in that moment is I've already done all I wanted to do, and I'm great. I'm golden.

Yep.

And if you're golden, then that's fantastic.

Sure.

Like, start giving some seminars. Tell people what you did. If you're not, then we can start to dig into it.

Yeah.

So, when you say how does this dynamic get highlighted, at least for me, I always ask the question, like, okay, if nothing changed, would that be okay? And if the answer is no, then we can start to dig in.

Yeah. So, that's what precedes awareness. Okay, excellent. So, all right, we've become aware. We have an issue. Again, now that we're aware, what do we do about it? We're plateauing, we've got challenges, we don't want things to be the same, more aware, but what now?

Yeah, so a couple of things. Number one, and this is something that Goldsmith highlights, but also, I think that you and I see when we work with people, the people that we're working with, they are not just starting out. They've actually had some experiences. And so, the higher you go in leadership, the more your strengths and also your problems and shortcomings are going to be about your behavior and your mindset and not about this technical industry understanding. The higher you go, the more your ability to use your behavior and your mindset to create the conditions for success at your organization comes to the forefront. And so, for me, when I engage, the way I want to engage with leaders is around those issues of behaviorally and in mindset and thinking, how am I approaching the work of creating an environment where success is easy for my people? That’s the first step is for them to see sort of the behavioral, leadership, mindset component of it. That's the first way of engaging.

And I think that's almost an extension of awareness if I'm hearing you right. Like, it's kind of what's next? What if people have a hard time with that? I'm thinking of clients and even I fall into this at some point where I'm like, no, no, I know how to do this. I can just try harder. You know that type of thing. And I can get it back. I don't know. What would you say to that?

Well, the first thing, again, I’ll just come back to this. There's a number of ways of doing this. At Rewire, we use a 360 to solicit feedback, because we're looking for specific areas. We need to drill down and get specific. Like, what is specifically happening or not happening in those moments? That would be a great place to start. And 360, you know, there are 1000s of them out there, so that's a great way to start to see very specific behaviors. The way that I like to engage is to look at, if you could be, again, that word “be” is very important, if you could be however you wanted in your role, how would you be? And then when the leader responds, well, I would be confident, I would be decisive, I would be mentoring, I would be whatever, I would be open, I would be however they finish that, what they're starting to do is create their leadership brand. Every leader has a leadership brand, whether they know it or not and that's why the 360 is helpful, is because it actually identifies what their current brand is.

For sure. Yep, yep.

So when I ask them, how would you like to be, they're starting to outline a future brand. And that brand of how they would like to be, well, it will have behaviors in it. We'll start to get through, well, if you were gonna be more mentoring, let's say, if you wanted to have mentoring as more a part of your leadership brand, what would we do?

Hmm.

And that's the thing, what got you here won't get you there. And this is just an example.

Yeah.

And is it okay if I tell a story?

I relish it. I welcome it. Go for it.

So, I got a guy, he owns a company in the Pacific Northwest. It's about 20 years old. He started it himself.

Okay.

They have grown massively successful. Just him, all by himself. Now he has a team of 20, plus a bunch of 1090 nines doing work. There is a hard barrier between him and the rest of the team, which means he can never step away.

Yeah.

Or, he can never get away. And so, he starts feeling separated from his family, separated from his friends, separated from activities that bring joy and meaning into his life.

Sure.

Now what got him here was perfectionism, high drive, long hours, responsiveness, and it has made his company very successful, but it won't get them to the next stage, because he has become the bottleneck, because the people underneath him are not quite capable enough and don't have half of his drive, half of his attention to detail, half of his expectations, half of his responsiveness. So, the work becomes if, let's say it's mentoring, the hardest thing for a leader to do is going to be to allow the email or the inquiry coming in to the organization to go to someone else.

Yup.

There's this thing that I say is nature abhors a vacuum, and that's an axiom. I'll just sort of unpack it for a second. This is the way I do it. So, let's say I go out to my front yard, and I've got a lawn in my front yard, and I take a hoe, and I scalp the lawn. I dig out a two foot by two-foot, patch of grass, and it's just bare dirt right there. Bare dirt. Will it stay bare dirt?

Nope.

Correct. So when we work with leaders and we talk about what got you here, won't get you there, we have to identify the thing that is holding them back. So, in this case, the thing that's holding back is responsiveness and always being on. What's going to get him to the next level? Well, we start to work on training programs. We start to work on recruitment. Can we recruit people that are similar to this leader, that can fill that in? When a leader stops doing something that they were doing, that's brilliant. And so, we work with leaders, and this comes up in the book, half the battle is just to stop doing the thing that they were doing before, and this can be for different leaders this can be different things. It can be always having to be right; it can be making sure that you speak on every issue that comes up in a meeting or every project that comes across your plate, that you have a role in it, it can be making sure that you're the final word on what gets passed and what gets done, it can be essentially always trying to make an idea your own. So your people come up with an idea, and you got to make it your own, because you're the leader. If you're not making it your own or putting your own spin on it, then what are you doing?

Yep.

Okay, now that behavior of needing to make an idea your own and put your own spin on it, when you were at a former stage in your organization, in a former level, making an idea your own was something you were praised for and valued for, but once you're in that leadership level, you actually need your people to discover their own authentic way of making things their own. And the more you interfere with them making things their own, the less you will get people who will engage and actually carry things through to completion, because they're going to keep looking to you. They're going to know it's not actually done until you, as the leader, have made it your own.

Yeah, yeah. That's a great example. I see that with folks. You know, I was doing another interview recently, Longan, and this topic came up where, in fact, the scenario was almost exactly what you said, that this story was, hey, there was a meeting, and the meeting agenda started, and then the owner of the company, kind of, like, abruptly stopped all that and was like, yeah, but this, this, this whatever, and then everybody else shut down. And apparently in this organization, that happens a lot, and so it just stifles the potential innovation, the potential in ideas, the things that the people that this owner had hired to do, he stifled it. And so, we talked about that whole phenomenon where does the leader speak first, or do they speak last? Or do they listen more than they speak? And and that whole thing. So, I think that goes hand in hand with with your example right there.

Yeah, and just to sort of, and I don't know if I completed it, but the thing about nature pouring a vacuum is if a leader does not pick intentionally some other way of engagement, or some other path forward for their people, that will happen regardless. And so, the leader must be intentional about what they're going to do instead. So, you can pick any particular behavior that the leader is engaged in, and think, okay, well, what do we want to do instead? Rather than saying, okay, I'm going to stop blank, which is great, whatever that is, what are we going to do instead that would be in line with where you want to go?

Yeah, it's so good.

We think about where do we engage and what's the path forward? So it involves feedback, it involves identifying the problems, then identifying the behaviors that are actually standing in the way of us getting to the next phase, eliminating those or stopping those, which I understand is very hard. I understand that's not easy.

Sure. That’s the way we've always done it.

Correct, and the way that you've always done it has been successful. That's the whole thing about success. You've been successful in the past and so why would you stop doing something that's made you successful in the past? So, we're not just going to stop doing something, we're going to identify something that will help get us to the next stage, the next sort of evolution, and do that instead. We're filling in that vacuum with something that aligns with our vision for where we want to go.

Yeah, it's so good. In your example of the leader, if they just stop the one behavior, something's gonna fill in that gap. Something's gonna fill in that vacuum. If you can be intentional and purposeful and proactive about it, yeah, that sounds like that would be better than okay, we stopped that thing, but we have then what?

Yeah, yeah.

So, as you and I start to wrap here, there's so many different places we could go, and I feel like yes, we've scratched the surface, yes, we've gone down lower, but I feel like this could be a three-hour conversation, as opposed to a half an hour podcast. If you were summing up, hey, what got you here won't get you there, what type of how would you put a bow on this conversation?

Well, I think I would put it out there for the audience, and I don't know if people who listen to the podcast would find this interesting, but my background, I didn't start doing coaching, I started doing organizational communication and psychology. I don't know that I have a lot of original ideas, but the one that I've had that I haven't heard a lot of other people talk about is that psychological concepts, so ideas that emerge from the field of psychology, specifically personal psychology, can be applied analogically to organizations. And what I mean by that is you could take a psychological concept like, say, Maslow's Hierarchy, and just as you could apply Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to an individual, you could apply it to an organization. Just as you could apply concepts of personality to an individual, you could apply it to an organization. And I know it sounds like I'm going off the deep end right now, but I promise I'll bring it back.

I believe you.

What got you here won’t get you there has that same dynamic to it. It is working at both an individual level and at an organizational level. And so, the people who are listening to this podcast, what I would say is, you get to choose how you want to take that. So, when you think about you in your role, what got you here won't get you there, what does that mean for you, specifically, in terms of how you shift your way of engagement? So, I would also say to those who are listening to the podcast, who are in that C suite, this idea applies to you individually, as a leader, but it also applies to your organization. So, when you look at your company, what got your company here won't get your company there, and the way that your company looks right now, all you can say is that what got your company here will keep your company here.

Oh, he ends with a truth bomb. That's so good.

Your work as someone leading an organization is for you individually first, as a leader, and then for your organization, what does the next level look like, and how are you specifically going to need to transcend your past successes? That's the thing as a leader; you're going to have to transcend your past success as a leader so that your organization can transcend its past success as an organization.

Man, you put a bow on it, you wrapped it up, you packaged it and you mailed it. That was good. You saw me. I mean, I know your stuff. I engage with you on a weekly basis. And what you just said there about what got your company here, will keep your company here, man, I have a feeling that a lot of our listeners are going to be like, oh, he's so right. And then how you kind of wrapped it up there is just very helpful. Like, going, okay. I mean, you're wrapping it up the way that you opened it, which is awareness. Let's have awareness. And I think the way that you punctuated that by going, hey, what, what got your company here is probably going to keep your company here, and many leaders that I know, they're not satisfied with that, and so something different needs to happen. So Steve, thank you so much, man. As per use, I'm blown away with just what you got and the knowledge that you got, so, I really hope our audience feels the same way. You know, I asked this last question often with people, you know, outside of Rewire, but I'll ask it of you too. People may want to find out more about Rewire as a result of this conversation, but they also may want to be in touch with you. How do people get in touch with you?

Yeah, it's just my last name, LONGAN@Rewireinc.com. Shoot me an email. I won't say that my LinkedIn game is strong, but you're welcome to contact me on LinkedIn. And I think the thing that I would say is that better work comes out of better conversations and so if people want to reach out to me, I'm always interested in having a conversation and then seeing what comes out of that. So, yeah, reach out. Love the conversation.

And I can attest that you are a very good conversationalist. The number of times over the last 11 years where you and I have entered into a dialogue and I walk away going, that's exactly what I needed, it’s just over and over and over again. You have an uncanny way of doing that. So, thanks for walking your talk, and thanks for this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's do it again.

Yeah, we'll do it again sometime, but for now, it's a wrap. Thank you so much, Steve Longan.

Yeah.

Well, Steve Longan did not disappoint. The insights that I had from talking to this guy, I have insights every time I speak with him, which is probably every other day, but today, his idea of, you know, the whole topic that we covered, which is what got you here won't get you there, I really liked what he said around just the awareness around that's just one step, and then really hitting at home with the thing that I wrote down, which is, what got your company here will keep your company here. And that's just like a slap in the face, like really cold water going, oh, so we're going to need to do something different. That was just insightful to me. And better work comes out of better conversations. I really appreciated that reminder and that insight as well. So, as we say at the end of every episode of The Insight Interviews, it doesn't much matter what my insights are as the host, but what really matters is, what were your insights? 

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