The hardest part of a manager’s job isn’t staying organized, meeting deliverable dates, or staying on budget. It’s dealing with people who are too comfortable doing things the way they’ve always been done and too afraid to do things differently—workers who are, as author Bill Treasurer puts it, too “com
fear
table.” Such workers fail to exert themselves any more than they have to, equating “just enough” with good enough. By avoiding even mild challenges, these workers thwart forward progress and make their businesses dangerously safe.
To combat this affliction, Treasurer proposes a bold antidote: courage. In
Courage Goes to Work,
he lays out a comprehensive, step-by-step process that treats courage as a skill that can be developed and strengthened. He Treasurer shows how managers can build workplace courage by modeling courageous behavior themselves, creating an environment where people feel safe taking chances and helping workers deal with fear.
To make the concept of courage more concrete, Treasurer identifies what he calls the Three Buckets of Courage:
Try
Courage, having the guts to take initiative;
Trust
Courage, being willing to follow the lead of others; and
Tell
Courage, being honest and assertive with coworkers and bosses. He illustrates each with a variety of vivid real-world examples and offers proven practices for helping your workers keep each bucket full.
Aristotle said that courage is the first virtue because it makes all other virtues possible. It’s as true in business as it is in life. With more courage, workers gain the necessary confidence to take on harder projects, embrace company changes with more enthusiasm, and extend themselves in ways that will benefit their careers and their company.
Courage Goes to Work
is the first book to take a systematic approach to developing a vital but overlooked component of business success.
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Foreword by Sara Blakely
Introduction – Too Much Comfort, Too Much Fear
Part I: Setting a Foundation for Courage
Chapter 1 – Look Before You Leap
Chapter 2 – Jumping First
Chapter 3 – Create Safety Nets
Chapter 4 – Harness Fear
Chapter 5 – Modulate Comfort
Part II: Three Buckets of Courage
Chapter 6 – Fillers and Spillers
Chapter 7 – TRY Courage
Chapter 8 – TRUST Courage
Chapter 9 – TELL Courage
Part III: Committing to Giant Leaps
Chapter 10 – The Courageous Choice
Chapter 11 – Courageous Living
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
About Giant Leap Consulting, Inc.
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Bill Treasurer is chief encouragement officer at Giant Leap Consulting. His clients include NASA, e Bay, Lenovo, Saks Fifth Avenue, Spanx, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Treasurer has served in numerous management roles, including as the first internal executive coach at Accenture. Earlier, he was the captain of the US High Diving Team. He is the author of A Leadership Kick in the Ass, Right Risk, Leaders Open Doors, and The Leadership Killer.