by Edward G. Brown
Fear is a crippling emotion, both in life and in the workplace. Edward G. Brown, author of The Time Bandit Solution: Recovering Stolen Time You Never Knew You Had and cofounder of Cohen Brown Management Group, explains how fear is detrimental to proper management—and courage, like any other skill, needs to be fostered with training.
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A frustrated CEO expostulated to me recently, “I am so tired of cowardly managers who simply will not confront their people’s performance. That’s their job! I put them there to manage their people to higher levels, not float along with the status quo. They know who and what need confronting. But for some reason, they are afraid to do it. Drives me crazy!”
The obvious answer that he had overlooked in his frustration was actually right there in his hands. When managers lack an essential skill, they need to be trained in it. If they are afraid to do their job, they need to be taught, in this case, courage.
Yes, you read that right. Courage is a learnable skill. It’s what is called a “third-space skill” in a world that considers business and engineering first- and second-space skills, respectively.
Did this frustrated CEO just happen to hire a bunch of timid souls? I doubt it. You will find his problem rampant in companies around the world. He was just a bit ahead of most in accurately naming the problem: fear. It is fear in denial—a fear that people who experience it rarely admit to. But it’s fear.
Failures in the workplace happen in front of people you’re trying to impress, to say nothing of creating financial hardship. So our fears deepen, but by now we are experts at denying them sturdily.
And my, how creative we get in our denials!
- Fear of confronting honestly: First, I want to get my employees’ trust before I point out their shortcomings honestly. If I’m too frank, they will not listen to me.
- Fear of exposing weakness: What if my team thinks, “Who are you to tell me how to sell? You’re a manager; you’ve never sold a thing.”
- Fear of selling: I don’t want to be seen as pushy. I don’t want my customers to have buyer’s remorse later on. I’ll just send them another e-mail reminding them about our sale instead of calling and assessing their needs.
- Fear of bigger challenges: “I’m doing OK now. If I get promoted, I might fail.”
You can see why I am passionate about teaching courage as a vital third-space skill. But, how is it done?
Look for Brown’s five key ways to teach courage in tomorrow’s Advisor.