Maximum Success: Changing the 12 Behavior Patterns that Keep You From Getting Ahead.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Review

Maximum Success: Changing the 12 Behavior Patterns that Keep You From Getting Ahead. By James Waldroop and Timothy Butler. Doubleday, 325 pages. $24.95.

Unlike the famed 12-step programs used in combating alcoholism or smoking, this book doesn't set forth a progression or a path to follow. What it does feature is a list of a dozen behaviors that the authors -- Ph.Ds who are directors of MBA career development at the Harvard Business School -- believe can stymie executives from reaching the top.

The authors delve into the very different behavior patterns they see people fall into, caused by everything from excess timidity to overbearingess, from conflict avoidance and poor self-image to rebelliousness. Each of the first 12 chapters looks at a few real-life individuals (identified only by a first name), relating their personal histories and extrapolating those to the model they're describing. The first part of the...