When I first decided to engage in a career as a professional speaker, I had a lot of grand ideas about sharing my knowledge, insight, and wisdom. After all, that seems like what all the other speakers are doing.
It was a nice idea, but I quickly discovered that my audiences weren’t really all that interested in that aspect of my presentations. It turns out my audiences were generally a whole lot smarter than I ever could have imagined. They had knowledge, insight, and wisdom too, not to mention first-hand experience in their industry and its problems. The only thing that was consistently desirable was… (drum roll please)… courage.
It turns out most problems are fairly obvious, and the optimum solutions are even "obviouser." That aspect of management and leadership is seldom a problem. The problem, rather consistently, is overcoming fearful resistance (internal, external, and usually irrational) to these obvious solutions. Restating the obvious problem and the obvious solution seems like it should work, but it doesn’t. It does not overcome the fearful resistance to acknowledgment of the obvious problem and the even greater resistance to the potential downsides of instituting the obvious solution. Again, the real solution, and what is always in short supply, is courage.
Courage is, among other things, the act of maintaining calm rational thought in the face of something that is very frightening. Since there is a virtually infinite number of frightening things in the world, both in the temporal world and within our own subconscious minds, courage is an essential tool for every human being.
There are many people who are labeled as “inspirational speakers,” in that they tell stories of people who have exhibited courage in the face of very dire circumstances. By giving examples of courage in action, this does I think certainly foster greater courage within people who are hearing the story. I, however, prefer to take a different tack.
While there’s a lot to be said for increasing the level of one’s courage, it seems to me that the Toyota lean approach might be better suited for this situation. What I mean by that is, instead of increasing one’s level of courage, perhaps it would be more efficient to decrease one’s level of fear.
We are living through frightening times. And one thing I have learned about courage and fear is that whatever it is you are afraid of, one’s imagination always flies to an inflated worst-case scenario which is always far worse than the actual threat. So one of the most efficient uses of courage is to take a good look at what ever it is you think is so terrifying, and make yourself aware of its true dimensions. Of course even this requires priming the pump with some courage, because we are of course afraid of what we might find. But this is one of the most efficient uses of courage, and that it quickly determines just how much courage will be required to face the problem.
This is clearly a larger topic than can be put in a blog post, so I shall continue this later on.
© Justin Locke
Justin Locke is an entertaining speaker. Call him at the number listed above to discuss having him appear at your next event.
