Chapter 9

TELL Courage

I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.

Harry S. Truman

Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of “crackpot” than the stigma of conformity.

Thomas J. Watson

“Your opinion matters to us, really.” ––

“We want your input as we move forward.” “These changes will impact you, so please tell us what you think.”

For all the talk about wanting people to be open and honest, the reality is that many organizations stifle (or punish) such behavior. If this weren’t the case, surely more people would have spoken up sooner about the breathtaking misdeeds at companies like Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Cendant, Dynegy, ImClone, Theranos, Wells Fargo, Vivendi Universal, Waste Management, Global Crossing, and Tyco. It’s important to remember that most organizations are not democracies. The average employee does not get to vote on which senior management decisions he or she will endorse. As one-party systems, most organizations more closely resemble authoritarian regimes than they do free and open societies. Employees aren’t “citizens,” and the ability to influence companywide decisions is restricted to those in the upper echelons. So regardless of how open a company considers itself to be, the risks of voicing an opinion that runs counter to the directives of the senior team are so high that most employees keep quiet. In the case of TELL Courage, the risk is that in voicing your true opinion, you’ll be set aside as an outcast from the established social order. The risk that comes with TELL Courage is the risk of social banishment.

Having worked with thousands of employees over the years, I have come to believe that the TELL Courage bucket is the one most in need of filling. Employees are quite skilled at biting their tongue. Rather than outwardly disagree with company changes—and risk being viewed as mavericks or outsiders—they “go along to get along.” But just because employees actively nod their heads “yes” doesn’t mean they aren’t passively behaving according to “no.” Many company initiatives are dead on arrival because the senior executives misjudged the lack of true commitment to the initiative that lower-level employees had in the first place. They had surface-level yes but commitment-level no.

The lack of TELL Courage demonstrated by employees is directly related to the behavior of managers. Specifically, when managers use intimidation to get things done, employees learn that speaking up is the best way to get thrown out. Intimidation is a powerful behavioral weapon, and when the intimidator has power over you (such as the ability to fire you), it doesn’t matter if you’re a bodybuilding muscle-head—a weakling boss can still make you shake with fear. Thus, of the three courage buckets, TELL Courage is, for a lot of employees, the hardest to fill.

Immature managers may think their job would be easier if people would just “shut up and work.” More mature managers know, however, that TELL buckets full of fear make their jobs harder. One of the cardinal rules of good management is No Surprises! A manager’s job is made exponentially more difficult when employees are too afraid to come forward with problems until the problems become too broken to be fixed. Filling workers’ TELL buckets with courage is the best way of ensuring that workers will overcome the fear that they’ll be in trouble if they tell you about problems as they arise.

Fearful TELL buckets present real dangers to managers. When employees shut up, managers aren’t able to gauge how committed they are to company changes. When employees shut up, managers become closed off from front-line information that could enhance their decision making. When employees shut up, managers lose valuable ideas that could produce revenue-generating or cost-saving innovations. When employees shut up, progress suffers. For this reason, filling employees’ TELL Courage buckets is one of the most important of all managerial functions.

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TELL Courage is the courage of “voice.” It involves having independently formed opinions, telling the truth, and being accountable for your own mistakes.

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Confronting company intimidators is particularly challenging for employees. But such challenges also present opportunities to demonstrate TELL Courage. The following story illustrates the difficulties and necessities of TELL Courage. Many times, the most courageous conversations are those that take place one-on-one.

The Ogre on the Runway

Chicago’s O’Hare airport vies for the top spot as the world’s busiest airport. Twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year, flights from all over the world take off and land at O’Hare. To keep things running safety and smoothly, it is critical that O’Hare’s runways are well maintained and well lit. There-fore, O’Hare is continuously modernizing and rehabilitating its runways. But because of the intense volume of air traffic, O’Hare doesn’t have the luxury of closing down any runway for an extended period of time. Much of the refurbishing has to happen on the fly, so to speak, mostly occurring between midnight and 6 a.m.

Troy, a project manager I was coaching as part of a leadership development program for one of our Chicago-based clients, was responsible for modernizing two of O’Hare’s runways—a pair of the busiest runways in the world. In the construction business, successful projects require tight integration between management and labor. Project managers (PMs) gather the project specs and requirements, plan the timelines, interact with the client executives, and ensure the delivery of materials and equipment. PMs are the project organizers. Supervisors, on the other hand, work with the unions to line up the local labor, deal with the inevitable day-to-day challenges, and provide hands-on oversight over the field personnel. Supervisors are the project implementers. Because PMs mostly work out of the corporate office, and because part of their job is to coordinate the overall project effort, some PMs hold the inaccurate view that the field labor works for them. Conversely, because successfully implementing a project is contingent upon the field personnel, some supervisors hold the inaccurate perception that they alone are responsible for the project. Giant Leap works with four Chicago-based companies, and all of them have one thing in common: occasional friction between PMs and supervisors.

As Troy explained to me, the friction mostly stems from the different ways that PMs and supervisors learn their trades. Many PMs have no direct field experience, joining the executive ranks straight out of college. Many supervisors, on the other hand, never went to college and earned their positions through the school of hard knocks. Construction is a journeyman’s business; there is no fast track. Advancement in the field takes years and years of hands-on project work.

On top of the management-and-labor tension is the constant and unrelenting pressure of the project. Huge sums of money are at stake and the deadlines are tight, so there’s no room for slippage. All this was ticking in the background when Brad, the lead supervisor, called Troy at home one Friday night halfway through the project. As Troy explained, “Here I was working sixteen-hour days, seven days a week. The body will only let you push so far. So after working twenty-four hours the night before, I went home and jumped in bed by 8 p.m. to get some rest. PMs are on call twenty-four hours a day, so at 10 p.m. I answer the phone when Brad calls. He tells me to get out of bed, go online, and get him a weather report. I’m still half-asleep, so it takes some time for me to get my bearings while I stumble around a bit. Brad gets so pissed off at me for taking longer than he wants that he blows a gasket and starts cussing me out for everything under the sun. Then, just like that, he hangs up!”

Brad, as Troy explained, was a seasoned vet with over twenty years of field experience. He was familiar with every kind of work situation imaginable. Brad had also seen a stream of young project managers waltz in and start attaching their names to successes he was producing. Over the years he had developed a significant degree of contempt for the PMs, particularly those with no field experience. Eventually, Brad resorted to verbally abusing the “PM prima donnas,” partly as a way to show them who the real boss was and partly as a way to keep his field personnel entertained. Though respected by the field labor, he was an ogre in the eyes of the PMs.

“I tossed in bed for over an hour, stewing about Brad’s tirade,” Troy continued. “The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Who the hell was he to get away with talking to people like that? I guess this is where the TELL Courage comes in, because I got out of bed and called Brad. He didn’t answer, so I called the general foreman and told him I was coming down to the airport to get a piece of Brad’s ass.”

It’s interesting to wonder what would have happened if Troy had brushed it off and stayed in bed. Certainly that would have been the choice of many other PMs. But letting Brad’s behavior slide would only validate for Brad that intimidation—purposely making people afraid of you—is a successful strategy for keeping people under your control. Yes, were it any other PM, Brad’s approach would have worked. But Brad underestimated one critical factor: Troy was an ex-Marine, and Marines are people who know the value of TELL Courage.

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TELL Courage culminates in High Noon moments—verbal showdowns that can make or break relationships.

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“If there’s one thing I learned in the Marines, it is that if you don’t stick up for yourself, you won’t have the balls to stick up for other people when they need it. I had to confront Brad as a matter of self-respect—and frankly, so that he would learn to respect me.”

When Troy got to the airport, the crew was working at the top of the runway. Brad, however, knowing that Troy was coming, had driven his truck down to the runway’s far end.

TELL Courage often culminates in a High Noon moment, a verbal showdown, and this was it. As Troy slowly drove down the long runway, he knew that one way or another, from this conversation on, things would be different between him and Brad. In the distance, he could see Brad leaning against his truck with his arms folded and his head tilted to the side.

“What do you want?” Brad asked, clenching his jaw.

“I’m here to tell you that I didn’t appreciate your lighting into me tonight. All of us are working hard to make this project successful. We are on the same goddamned team, Brad! When you told me to go online and look at the weather reports, what did I do?”

“Hell if I know,” Brad said condescendingly. “I wasn’t going to sit there waiting for you just to find out. My crew has too much real work to do.”

“No, Brad, I got up, half-asleep, to get a weather report that you probably could have gotten yourself.” He went on, “Listen to me, Brad, I am not some enemy working against you. I’m also not some PM rookie oblivious to how things are done in the field. I spent ten years in the field before moving into management. I still spend more time in the field than almost every other PM you know. Brad, do I ever disrespect you like some of the other PMs you’ve worked with? No, I don’t. I value you too much to treat you like I’m better than you.”

Brad, unexpressive, looked away from Troy and stared off into the distance.

“Brad,” Troy continued, “I need you to hear me. I came down here in the middle of the night to tell you this: I’m here to help you, and I need you to help me. We’re on the same team. Don’t ever again talk to me the way you did tonight.”

There is often a decisive moment after someone asserts TELL Courage. In that moment a choice is made: convince yourself that you are right and dig your heels in deeper, or consider the words of courage and accept the invitation to change. What is told through TELL Courage is the truth, or at least one person’s rendition of it. The choice becomes to accept that person’s truth, or to reject it. Troy was, for all intents and purposes, challenging Brad. For Brad to accept Troy’s TELL Courage would mean that he would have to accept his own culpability, which is exceedingly hard to do. Brad would have to admit he was wrong (which itself takes TELL Courage).

Brad sighed deeply. After a moment, he shifted his gaze back to Troy, unfolded his arms, and extended a hand. “You’re right, Troy. I’m sorry.”

As Troy tells it, “We shook hands and never looked back. That talk at the end of the runway caused something to change in our relationship. Brad knew I respected all the pressure he was under and all the work he was doing. But that day he also learned that I respected myself. I think that gave him confidence in my abilities as a leader. Though it wasn’t my goal, by confronting him I earned his respect … and I’ve had it ever since.”

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Admitting you’re wrong and saying you’re sorry are forms of TELL Courage.

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Here are a few takeaways about TELL Courage from Troy’s story:

Clarify the Dangers of Not Telling: While there are risks in confronting people, the bigger risks are often in not doing so. By withholding TELL Courage, workers may become ogre enablers, making ogres stronger and employees weaker. As a manager, you should clarify with your team when and how to confront obnoxious colleagues and customers. You’ll go a long way toward filling their TELL Courage buckets by sharing examples about when you have confronted ogres, too.

TELL It Privately: Intimidating people draw power from having an audience. By offering Brad his TELL Courage at the end of a long runway, Troy was able to have Brad’s full attention while preventing him from playing to the field labor crowd. As a manager, create the expectation that conversations that could potentially embarrass others should be handled privately and one-on-one. Be sure that when you confront workers about embarrassing issues, you do it out of earshot, too.

Set a Standard of Linguistic Precision: To be most effective, TELL Courage involves precision. Troy told Brad exactly what he found offensive and exactly what his expectation was going forward. As a manager, suggest to your workers that before they confront you or other teammates, they should first write down exactly what they want to say and exactly what they hope to achieve by exercising their TELL Courage. Practice and precision pour the fear out and put the courage in.

The next story, while emphasizing TELL Courage, shows how all three types of courage work together. In this case, TRY Courage and TRUST Courage allow for and support the full expression of TELL Courage. This story also shows how teams of people can go about filling all three buckets at the same time.

Going There

In 2007, Giant Leap launched a new courage-building program with the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) called the NOC MBA: Management By Adventure. The NOC is located in Murphy, North Carolina, and is one of the world’s premier whitewater and adventure facilities. Numerous Olympic kayaking champions have trained there. The MBA program combines the NOC’s rich history as a provider of adventure experiences with Giant Leap’s courage-building content and techniques. This is not some beat-your-chest executive hoop-la in the woods. The learning doesn’t come from “roughing it” without toilet paper. To the contrary—executives stay in luxury mountain cabins that would make Daniel Boone blush. They’re also treated to organic gourmet meals throughout much of the experience. Rather than teaching through deprivation, we leave in place all the amenities that senior executives have become accustomed to (comfortable accommodations, tasty meals, wireless Internet access, heinie-soothing toilet paper, and so on). Retaining the creature comforts allows the executives to focus on the business at hand: getting courageous with one another. As the program’s facilitator, Giant Leap helps the executives to “go there”—with “there” being the politically dicey or interpersonally uncomfortable subjects that they prefer to tiptoe around despite the negative consequences of doing so.

Although the creature comforts remain, the executives aren’t pampered. During the program, they do such things as traverse through a high ropes course suspended forty feet in the air, splash through whitewater while rafting down the cold Nantahala River, and actively engage in all of the courage-related content that Giant Leap presents during the multi-day experience. The program follows a deliberate progression from trying to trusting to telling. Participants first challenge their comfort by going through the adventurous and physically demanding parts of the program (try). As people actively support one another during the adventure challenges, they begin to let their guard down, developing a fragile sense of shared vulnerability (trust). The high degree of trust that develops becomes the foundation for the meat of the program—having healthy, sober, and often uncomfortable discussions (tell) about the issues (strategic, tactical, and interpersonal) that are preventing the team from maximizing its potential. The try and trust parts of the program help create a supportive environment so that the team can have what my company calls Courageous Conversations without the defensiveness or bitterness that such discussions typically provoke.

Over the years, I’ve facilitated hundreds of team-building events with companies of different sizes and stature. Although there are limits to the effectiveness of experiential team-building programs, done right they can be a powerful means of helping teams to confront themselves. While mis-aligned goals, lack of a detailed plan, and misguided leadership can be significant inhibitors of team performance, very often the largest inhibitor is avoidance. That is, avoiding the interpersonally touchy subjects that surround the team like sensitive land mines.

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Avoiding interpersonal confrontation is a bigger inhibitor to team performance than misaligned goals, lack of planning, or misguided leadership.

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Getting to TELL

Even strong teams can tend toward avoidance. Such was the case with a marketing consulting company that participated in our Management By Adventure program. To honor the company’s privacy, let’s call it RadWorks. The company’s workforce, composed mostly of top graduates from tier-one schools, prides itself on offering the same level of marketing intelligence and expertise as big consulting companies provide, but without the stiffness and bureaucracy. Unlike most marketing companies, RadWorks doesn’t consider itself a “creative ad agency.” Such agencies tend to be order takers, taking direction from their clients and then coming back with marketing ideas built around the client’s preferences (which are often very different from the preferences of the client’s customers). RadWorks, conversely, helps its clients to identify the right marketing strategies, and then coordinates the overall marketing campaign to ensure that the efforts of all the “creatives” are integrated and strategically aligned. RadWork’s unique and effective approach has helped it to quickly amass an impressive list of Fortune 100 clients.

The company had grown from two full-time employees to eighteen in just five years, and most had come on board in the two years prior to attending the Management By Adventure program. During the one-on-one interviews conducted before the program, it became evident that everyone genuinely enjoyed working at RadWorks. It also became evident that the company was still in its infancy when it came to defining its culture. But gaining cultural maturity was difficult, as RadWorks was winning more and more out-of-town engagements, forcing employees to spend more time away from the office and each other. People were feeling disconnected.

In interviews we asked people to describe any “Pink Elephants” the team might be avoiding that would be useful to address. During the NOC MBA program, we describe Pink Elephants as sensitive subjects that most people are aware of but avoid talking about. Though the answers varied, two subjects became prominent. First was what a few people termed the “Edict Memo.” One of the company principals had sent an e-mail telling everyone that they were required to work a minimum of fifty hours a week and were to report to work no later than 9 a.m. The e-mail also specified that during times when the consultants weren’t with the clients, they were to be working in the office (versus working remotely or at home). Although the executive sending the memo was consistently identified as the most courageous person in the company, people felt that the tone of the e-mail was patronizing and dictatorial—hence the “Edict” label.

The second Pink Elephant was a growing recognition that the company was starting to reflect the characteristics of the bigger consulting companies. People felt that the company was accepting too many “me too” projects that lacked distinction or uniqueness. Rather than targeting innovative and edgy marketing projects, they were starting to become order takers, accepting inane work that any creative agency was capable of doing. They were beginning to play it too safe, even to the point of failing to push back on their clients’ bland or ill-informed ideas. RadWorks was becoming too traditional and, in the process, weakening its differentiating position in the marketplace.

The cool thing about the NOC MBA program is that the data drives the agenda. Companies enter into the program knowing that the subjects unearthed during the stakeholder interviews will likely become the fodder for the program’s culmination—a series of structured Courageous Conversations designed to help the team to confront, address, and move beyond the issues that are getting in the way of superior performance. Nothing is off-limits. Because of our role as an outside neutral party, participants often tell us about meatier issues than they tell their own internal consultants or the HR reps.

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Courageous conversations are designed to help teams confront and address—in a sober and adult way—issues that are getting in the way of superior performance.

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The Courage Lifeline

During the early part of the RadWorks MBA experience, we taped a long piece of butcher paper to the meeting room wall and divided it into five columns (representing each year the company had been in business). Next we drew a line through the middle of the paper. The top half of the paper would represent “moments of courage” and the bottom half would represent “moments that lacked courage.” Participants were given markers and told to identify, using sticky notes, the courageous and not-so-courageous moments in the company’s history. Each significant moment in its history was placed on the paper, and the farther away from the midline the moment was placed, the more intensely courageous or not so courageous it was. Giant Leap calls this activity the Courage Lifeline, and we typically use it at the start of a session to help draw attention to the important relationship between courage and business. The activity helped tease out the courageous moments that people were proud of at RadWorks. Such events as the founding of the company, winning a huge project over a more famous consulting company, and persuading a client to implement a Rad-Works idea over a tamer idea of its own were all identified as courageous moments. Moments that lacked courage included performing a large project for free in the hopes of winning more work (which they didn’t), accepting a large uninspired low-margin project that any creative house could have done, and failing to push back on one client executive’s lame idea for fear of upsetting him.

Later that same day, everyone participated in the NOC’s high ropes course. The beauty of the ropes course is that it challenges people to detach from all that is solid and familiar. People become ungrounded, literally, by having to confront safe-but-scary elements suspended forty feet in the air. In addition to requiring a healthy dose of TRY Courage, successfully traversing through all the elements requires the full emotional and physical support of your teammates.

Confronting the Pink Elephants in the Room

The adventurous activities of the first day, coupled with a team dinner that evening, helped put everyone’s guard down while building up their trust levels. Confronting the Pink Elephants would take TELL Courage, and a trustful environment would aid in the process. To set up the conversation on the second day, I first presented the findings of the up-front interviews and then introduced the two Pink Elephants described earlier. To structure the conversation, I set forth a number of rules of engagement, which included focus on what’s best for the company; use language to connect, not compete; balance honesty with courtesy; “go there”; and be courageous. I also let them know that it was my job to broker the conversation, to make certain that people spoke as adults, and to ensure that no one got emotionally body-slammed. Finally, I had each of RadWorks’ three principals verbally agree that there would be no repercussions for people telling the truth and that no subject was off-limits.

Once one person says something courageous, it is easier for others to do so. In this instance the first person to step into his TELL Courage was Geoff, one of the newer and nervier folks. Geoff had joined RadWorks after graduating with a degree in marketing eighteen months earlier. He spoke of having been attracted to RadWorks’ unconventional style and bold approach to innovation. But he had grown disappointed with what he perceived as the senior execs’ “selling out” by taking on run-of-the-mill projects that required little marketing thought or rigor. He talked of being frustrated at working long hours on a project that RadWorks had done free for what Geoff called “some lame business development excuse.”

Were Geoff’s comments stated during a regular office status meeting, RadWorks’ principals might have nodded politely and then gone back to their offices and plotted how to get rid of him. But it was clear that underneath Geoff’s comments was an appeal for the company to hold itself to higher ideals—ideals upon which the company had been founded. The Rad in RadWorks stood for radical, and Geoff was pointing out that the company was starting to become ordinary. In the marketing world, ordinary is the kiss of death.

Courageous Conversations involve a mature give and take. People acknowledged and validated Geoff’s experience. Some voiced counterbalancing perspectives too, pointing out that most companies occasionally have to take on uninspiring projects in the hopes of winning more meaningful work. Lame or not, that’s the nature of business development.

Geoff’s TELL Courage had become an invitation for the group to confront the growing perception that RadWorks was in danger of becoming like the bigger consulting companies it so despised. His candor created a space whereby people became willing to talk about meatier issues. People started “going there”—and the real “there” in this case was the Edict Memo.

Prior to the start of the session, the other NOC MBA faculty and I wondered if the participants would gain enough courage to have a sober and productive conversation about the memo. Of the two Pink Elephants identified before the program, the Edict Memo was the more delicate subject. The memo represented much more than an ill-crafted internal communication. It represented a shift away from the participative leadership style that had characterized RadWorks during its early years to a more “headmaster” leadership approach. Whereas the input of workers had been solicited when facing complex decisions in the past, this time one principal was laying down a company law without any reflection or input from the lower levels—something that would be expected at large, partner-driven consultancies but was entirely unexpected at RadWorks.

“I have something I’d like to say to Doug,” began Maria, a talented consultant who had been with the company for three years. Doug, the principal who had written the memo, lifted his eyebrows as if to say, “Me?” Maria continued, “Doug, a lot of people were offended by the memo you sent last month, the one about the new attendance requirements.”

Doug was listening but was clearly taken aback. A high achiever, Doug was admired as being much of the reason for RadWorks’ success. Because so much of him was personally invested in the business and its reputation, you could see that it was hard for Doug to hear Maria’s words. She explained, “A number of us have talked about it, and the thing that bothered us was that it was like a commandment delivered from on high. Like, ‘This is how it will be … tough shit if you don’t like it.’ You didn’t even invite us to get back to you with questions, which to me meant that you weren’t interested in getting any.”

This was it. We had arrived at the nexus of courage. The secret was out; the veil had been lifted off the Pink Elephant. What Doug would say next mattered a great deal. Tightening his lips, Doug slowly began, “I’m taken aback. Not angry, but surprised. Maybe a little disappointed too. My recollection is that prior to the memo, during one of our staff meetings, people were expressing concerns about feeling fragmented and disconnected from each other. That bothered me, because as a company we’re at a point in time where we need to solidify our identity, our culture. I didn’t send the memo based on some power trip. I sent it as a solution for pulling us together.”

Truth has depth. The room was heavy and silent. These moments are rare and necessary for groups. It is the kind of silence that no one rushes to fill, a spiritual silence. In such moments, groups are filled with sadness and gratitude at the same time. Sad because by stating what was previously unsaid they have forced a change and pried themselves loose from the past. Grateful because the change that everyone was wanting is now within reach. Like two people reluctantly admitting that they are in love, from this moment on, for better or worse, RadWorks would be different. Things had gotten serious.

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Truth has depth that, once told, results in a spiritual silence that can be filled with both sadness and gratitude.

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Extending the Value of Courage

After a time, the room became filled with TELL Courage. The new people talked about growing tired of hearing about the “good old days” when the company was founded. People voiced a desire to create new stories and new traditions. People started talking about the new culture they wanted to create and started putting definition to the type of work environment they wanted to work within. They started filling up the conference room wall with flip-charted lists of company improvements that they wanted to rally around.

As I told the folks at RadWorks before the program ended, religion is what happens when you leave the church. The NOC MBA experience would have the most impact if people honored the company and themselves by being courageous with each other going forward.

As part of the service, Giant Leap includes a follow-up visit to the client’s offices a few weeks after the session. When we met with RadWorks, they told us that they had held three town-hall meetings since the program, all focused on bettering the company and defining its culture. They told us how they were calling this the “summer of thinking,” and that everything about the company, from the way communication was handled to the organizational structure, was being reconsidered. Finally, they told us how people had begun using “TELL Courage” as a sort of rallying cry to prod people into being more up-front about things instead of letting them fester.

The RadWorks story offers a number of TELL Courage bucket-filling applications:

Fill the Other Buckets First: Creating an environment that encourages workers to speak openly and honestly takes time and trust. The people at RadWorks weren’t ready to offer TELL Courage to one another until they had raised their trust levels to a point where the discussion could be safely held. As a manager, work first on getting people to extend themselves (such as with stretch assignments) and building trust (such as delegating meaningful assignments) before expecting them to have TELL Courage. TRY and TRUST are often the means for filling the TELL bucket.

Ready Yourself to Be Told: As a manager, you may think you want your workers to have more TELL Courage, but when they start telling you things in an unvarnished way, you may find yourself taking it personally. Make a promise to yourself that you will consider each person’s words, regardless of how hard they are to hear, without responding rashly or defensively. Have the courage to get told to!

Act on What Is Told: Few things are as frustrating as mustering up the courage to tell your bosses something, only to have it fall on deaf ears. When appropriate and feasible, honor people’s TELL Courage by taking action on what they say. The principals at Rad-Works did this by holding follow-up sessions devoted to hearing about, and taking appropriate actions on, the employees’ recommendations.

As described in this chapter, TELL Courage is often the hardest to exhibit in a work setting. It is also the hardest bucket for managers to fill. The story about RadWorks shows that getting workers to speak out openly and without reservation is sometimes a function of first filling their TRY and TRUST buckets.

Next we’ll shift our attention away from the specific courage bucket behaviors, and look at ways you can express your courage in all aspects of your personal and professional life. Part 3 of the book focuses on helping you commit to taking more giant leaps in all areas of your life.