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Finding the Courage to Start a Business Once and for All

Starting a business is no walk in the park. It takes loads of passion, determination, and … guts. But, how do you find the courage to take such a big leap and start your own venture? Read on to learn how to find the courage to start a business and signs it’s time to make the big jump.

Finding courage to start a business: 5 tips

There are over 582 million entrepreneurs in the world. If you want to become one of them, you have to start somewhere. And, sometimes that “somewhere” begins with mustering up the courage to start a business in the first place. On finding the courage to start a business, Baruch Silvermann, CEO and Founder of The Smart Investor , said:

It is never going to be the perfect time to start a business. If you constantly keep putting it off, you might regret that decision for the rest of your life. Countless massive businesses have been started during the worst recessions. Start now by taking that first step.

To finally get the guts to start your own venture, use the five tips below.

1. Believe in yourself

This first tip may sound a little cheesy, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to become a business owner. Aspiring entrepreneurs: you have to believe in yourself.

If you want to start a business, you have to have confidence in yourself and your business idea. After all, you wouldn’t invest your time, money, and energy into something that you weren’t passionate and sure about, right? Right.

Think about your business idea and why you’re passionate about it. Will it help others? Does it make you happy? Ask yourself these questions to get to the bottom about why you love your business idea and what makes you confident that it will succeed.

To light the fire in you and give you courage to start your business, you have to believe in yourself and your idea 100%.

2. Set attainable goals

To thrive in business, be willing to set goals and go after them. But to get the courage to create a business, set goals well before your venture takes off.

Start the goal-setting process by identifying things like your company’s mission and target market. And, establish a business plan if you haven’t already. Outline the tasks you want to accomplish in the early days of your business. For example, you might want to:

  • Secure $X in funding from investors
  • Find a business location
  • Make $X in profits by the end of the first quarter
  • Sell X items in one month

When creating your goals, be realistic and set appropriate deadlines. As you gain more experience, you will learn how to set attainable goals and achieve them. On setting reachable goals while starting a business, Axel DeAngelis, Founder of NameBounce , said:

If you have limited business experience, try to simplify your goals as much as possible. Perfectionist goals will make it that much harder to get started. Simple goals will help you recognize that starting a business doesn’t need to be an insurmountable task.

Whatever you do, don’t shake off the importance of small goals in the beginning. The small tasks you set at the start of your entrepreneurial journey serve as stepping stones to reaching your business’s mission and make way for even bigger goals.

3. Surround yourself with positive people

To have the courage to start your own business, you not only need to be confident in yourself, but also surround yourself with people who will also give you a confidence boost.

The mere thought of starting a business can be exhausting. But if you have a great support system and surround yourself with positive people, you can gain the courage you need to begin your venture.

Here are a few individuals you can go to for motivation if you need a few words of encouragement:

  • Other business owners
  • Family members (e.g., aunt or uncle)

Chances are, they will be happy to support you and your entrepreneurial dream. And, you’ll feel even more determined when others tell you “you got this!”

4. Prepare ahead of time

Part of hyping yourself up and getting the courage to start a company comes from preparing yourself ahead of time. Maybe you need to prepare mentally. Maybe you need to prepare yourself physically (e.g., create a business plan). Or, maybe you need to do both.

Whatever the case may be, make sure you have all of your ducks in a row before beginning your venture.

Create strategies for different aspects of your business. That way, you’re prepared for anything that gets thrown at you during the process. Think about things like pricing, location, marketing, and social media. And, remember to also do research by conducting a market analysis .

The quicker you tackle these details, the more prepared you will feel to dive into the business world.

5. Get moving

Last but not least, if you want your entrepreneurial dream to become a reality, get moving by putting your plans into action.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a leap of faith and follow your passion. Sure, you may not have all the little details ironed out completely. But, that’s OK. Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect. Remember, you can always make adjustments in the future.

Don’t wait around forever to put your plan into action. Muster up the courage to start your business and get a move on with those goals you hope to achieve.

tips for finding the courage to start a business

Signs it may be time to start your business

You can start a business at any point in your life. Every entrepreneur’s time frame is different. In fact, 60% of people who start a small business are between the ages of 40 and 60.

It’s never too late to follow your passion and become an entrepreneur. But, how do you know when it’s time for you to start your company? If you’re itching to start a business, it might be time to take the leap if you:

  • Strongly believe in your idea
  • Are passionate and motivated
  • Perform best working on your own schedule
  • Have good business connections
  • Want to learn and grow
  • Have a solid plan in place

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Background image overlay of dark-haired woman sitting on bed with laptop and title Say yes! The four essential steps to starting your business. stefaniegass.com/blog

Hey Friend!

Are you scared to start your own business? Do you need the courage to start? While it sounds so simple, whether you want to start a business, a podcast, a course, or an offer, finding the courage to start is hard. The fears, limiting beliefs, and confusion that come in are debilitating. There are so many pieces to push through so you can just start . Today I’ve put together four steps to help you get the courage you need to start taking action. You don’t have to do this alone. Join me today as we create your own courage plan.

Your 4-Step Courage Plan – Find the Courage to Start Your Own Business

There is no perfect time to start your own business

Firstly, I’d like to disclaim these four steps by saying there is no perfect time to start . Often the call to start your own business will come at the most inconvenient time. It’s never going to make sense when God says, let’s do this thing. When we get the prompting, we can keep pushing Him off and making excuses, BUT God’s will is the way! 

And His timing will feel uncomfortable almost 100% of the time. Your life will probably be busy, you will probably be going through some stuff, and it won’t be convenient financially. This is constantly my story when God says start or go. There’s no perfect time! The best thing you can ever do is literally just go because, if you keep putting it out due to timing, it will never happen.

Gold splatter and gray background and quote There's no perfect time! The best thing you can ever do is literally just go. -Stefanie Gass

Secondly, you will not have absolute clarity. You will have a direction, especially if you’ve taken my Clarity Workshop or Clarify Your Calling . You’re going to have direction, but you’re not going to have the outcome. You can’t. That’s not how God works. He’s not like, here’s your perfectly positioned outcome of knowing exactly what will happen in one year, three, and five years. Yes, we can have dreams and a vision, but we don’t know what God’s going to do. We’re not supposed to know; that’s the point. We’re supposed to trust Him! We can’t trust God if we know the outcome. And that’s the whole purpose of everything – we’ve got to trust Him . 

Lean into getting uncomfortable

So this outcome will be a little scary because you don’t know what it is. You don’t know if this thing is going to work. You don’t know if it’s going to be worth your time. You’re not sure if people will laugh or judge you or listen. And that is precisely where you are supposed to be. You’re not supposed to know, and it’s not supposed to be the perfect timing. 

So now we have that out of the way; welcome to the club of being uncomfortable. This is the discomfort club, and everything beautiful, great, God-centered, glorious, and fruitful came from discomfort. Your comfort zone doesn’t create beautiful, incredible things. We have to learn to lean into getting uncomfortable. We have to get comfortable with it if we are going to make traction and do big, scary things. And guess what?! You can do hard things, friend. Everything is hard until it’s not.

Quote Your comfort zone doesn't create beautiful, incredible things. -Stefanie Gass

Your courage plan – the four steps to finding the courage to start your own business

To start your courage plan, get out a sheet of paper so you can write it down as you go. 

1. Get clear on steps 1-3

To have the courage to start, the first thing you have to do is to get clear on steps 1-3. That is all. So often I see the people around me thinking they need steps 1-500 planned out before they can start. 

But that doesn’t work because something has already changed by the time you get to step four. Things constantly change and evolve, and there’s never going to be a plan that executes A-Z perfectly every time. By the time you get to step one, you’ve learned and grown. Now it’s step two and you decide you’re going to pivot this little piece or model after this other thing, this software is a better fit for me. 

Don’t put all this stake in building this big audacious plan before you start. Sure, invest in the course, the coach, or read the book . That’s great, we want to know the way, but it’s just one step to invest in the course. You don’t need to know what platform you’re going to use for the rest of your life, which software is best, or 24 months of cash flow predictions which you have no idea how you’re going to make it or who your future tax advisor’s going to be when you make over $200,000 and need to become an S-corp. Like, stop! Just get clear on steps 1, 2, and 3.

How do you find your first three steps?

You can find your first three steps for when you start your own business right inside my Facebook group . Just ask, and my team and I are more than willing to help you and tell you what your first three steps should be. Another option is to listen to my podcast; I have over 560 episodes telling you exactly what to do if you want to start a business, a podcast, a course, or coaching. There’s so much content that will give you steps 1, 2, and 3, head to our podcast catalog (which you can find in the guides section of my Facebook group) and search for the topic you need. 

Or you can ask someone who’s gone before you, a friend or mentor, and say, “Hey, I just need the first three steps.”

Examples of your first three steps to start your online business:

Step 1: Get clear on what your business will be. How do you do this? (Never create an elusive and fuzzy step because it won’t help you.) You might decide to get clarity on your business by watching the free Clarity Workshop or by investing in Clarify Your Calling . You might also have a different person you’d like to invest in, or you might not need to invest at all if you already know what your business will be and move on to the next step. 

Step 2: Start building an audience/ creating long-form content . How? By starting a podcast . Build an audience and create long-form content using podcasting. 

You might also want to go more micro than this. The first three steps that you can decide are: Decide on the niche for your business, choose a business name, and decide who your business will be for.   

You can go as micro or as macro as you want, depending on how you like to operate. But I think baby steps are best when you’re getting started. And that’s all you need to do, just got three steps at a time until you’ve started.

2. Have it out with your inner critic

The second thing that will help you have the courage to start your own business is to have it out with your inner critic . Let’s have a fight with ourselves because you are not feeling courageous because of something that’s inside of you! Very few of you are hearing from someone else: “don’t do that; it’s going to be awful, you’re going to do a bad job, nobody will ever listen, and no one will ever buy from you.” Most of us here are actually saying these things to ourselves. 

So either on your paper where you wrote down your steps or on a new sheet of paper, I want you to write down what I call God Says statements. These are in Clarify Your Calling as part of my signature thing that helps transform your mindset, but essentially it’s to write down all these things that you believe to be true about yourself that are lies or the lies that you know are lies but still tell yourself anyway. 

These might be things like:

  • I don’t have time
  • No one will listen 
  • I have nothing good to say
  • I say umm too much, and everyone will hate me
  • I’m not creative enough to come up with content

Now you’ve written down all these lies, excuses, fears, and limiting beliefs, whatever the inner critic is screaming and claiming over you. I want you to google bible verses for ____. And the blank is the opposite of whatever the lie is. 

So, for example, if you believe you’re not creative enough, type in bible verses for creativity. There are so many bible verses that will come up. Just find one that speaks to you, such as Genesis 1:1 and 1:27. 

 “ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth .” – Genesis 1:1 “ So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God, He created them .” – Genesis 1:27  

What are these verses telling me right now? It’s saying God is so creative that He came up with this incredible heaven and earth and every single thing in it, right down to the tiny detail of how our bodies and brains work, God is so creative! And God created me in that same image, in the image of God, He created me.

Who God says you are

On your paper, write down God’s truth over this limiting belief, and you’re going to stand by that truth, and you’re going to have it out with your inner critic. You’re going to tell your inner critic the reality of what you are and who you are, and you are going to write that down and read it every single day, you’re going to speak it out, and you’re going to claim it over your life.

This might look like, I am created in the image of God. I am creatively made just like Him. When God created the heavens and the earth, His creativity was exponential. I have it inside of me and I can come up with incredible content to bless people the same way God blessed me . 

Do that for every one of those limiting beliefs and inner critic lies you’ve allowed to come into your heart. There is no room for that here. If we are going to lean into courage, we don’t have room for these thoughts.

3. Tell someone who believes in you

The third way to get more courage to start your own business is to tell someone who believes in you. I hope and pray we all have one person in our corner who believes in us. Who is that for you? It’s that one friend you can call no matter what’s going on in your life, and they are an encourager. Maybe it’s your spouse, and no matter what’s going on in your life, your spouse is there for you. They see you and uplift you, and they speak life over you. Maybe it’s one of your parents, your child, or even someone you’ve met online. It could also be a coach or a mentor of yours.  

Next, I want you to tell them, “Hey, I want to do this thing, I really want to, but I’m so scared to start. Can you speak so life into me right now? And then, can you hold me accountable?” 

If you do that, this person will hold up a mirror and tell you what they see. Have you ever asked someone the question, how do you see me? You won’t believe what someone who sees and loves you says about you.  

I’ve done this a couple of times with different courses/mastermind exercises, and it’s blown me away. People don’t see me how I see me, and you don’t see you how other people see you. And sometimes, we just need to hear it. It’s such a boost of confidence, and it amplifies your courage to know that somebody else sees so much value in who I am and what I have to offer, and I think that I can do this.

4. Lean into faith over fear

Lastly, lean into faith over fear. Proverbs 29:25 says, “ The one who trusts in the Lord is protected.” So if you trust in the Lord and His plan, and you start, you’re protected. God’s going to protect you when you start your own business. It doesn’t mean it won’t be hard, and it doesn’t mean there won’t be small failures or hiccups along the way as you start your business. Of course, there will be. You are refined by the fire. But it doesn’t matter because we’re doing this all for the glory of God anyway, right? Life is so short; why wouldn’t you start? Why wouldn’t you start today? Right now, even?  

Who knows what can happen tomorrow? I don’t want it to be that I didn’t start. I don’t want the biggest regret to be that I worried about it or was concerned that someone might laugh at me, or I wasn’t 100% sure of the outcome. No, I want that to be my biggest testimony and yours to be that I started even though. Even though faith like Habakkuk had in scripture in Habakkuk chapter 3, go and pour into that amazing chapter!

Start even though you feel afraid to start your own business

I started even though I was afraid and took action even though it wasn’t perfect. Even though I only had the first three steps, even though everything inside me said sit down; you’re unworthy, no one will listen, who are you? I pushed through all of that because God said, who I was. Faith over fear. Proverbs 29:25 says, The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted. The one who trusts in the Lord is protected; he is exalted. 

We are trusting in God . He has got a way for this thing. He has got us, we are protected, and we are also called. If we are called to do big and incredible things, the very first thing we have to do is say yes. And then, we have to actually put one foot in front of the other, and we have to go. We have to start. 

I hope this has given you the courage to start. You don’t have to walk this journey alone as you start your own business. There is so much support and encouragement available for you. All you have to do is reach out. Trust what God is going to do in your life, and get ready to begin.

I pray this blesses you!

P.S. Also, listen to podcast episode 567 for the full training on Find The Courage to START Your Own Business or Podcast in 4 Steps.

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This  free workshop  is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

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MIKE VAN DER POEL

Helping Entrepreneurs Take Off

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5 Powerful Ways to Muster Up the Courage to Start Your Own Business

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Let’s face it: We’d all benefit from having more courage. If you had the ability to do anything that frightens you, you’d be living the life you’ve always dreamt of. You’d have all the money you ever wanted. A beautiful family that loves you unconditionally. The freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want to.

You can achieve your dream life through entrepreneurship . Running a successful business is (or should be) the driving force that gets you up in the morning excited to start the day.

If you’re currently at a stage in your life where you know that you’d benefit from owning a business, but you’re struggling to muster up courage, you’re in the right place.

Table of Contents

5 ways to muster up enough courage to start your business, muster up the courage and success is all yours.

In this article, I talk about the changes you can make to become courageous enough to launch your first business. Here are 5 ways that help you overcome resistance:

1. Build a Support System

You’re the average of the people you spend the most time with. Your beliefs, mannerisms, and behaviours are shaped by your closest friends and family. Think about the people you want to surround yourself with: Who are they? What’s their personality like? What particular positive quality would motivate you to pursue your goals?

Who you spend most of your time with is who you become. That’s the law of proximity. — Mike van der Poel (@mikevanderpoel4) August 16, 2022

2. Eliminate Constraints

What’s holding you back from starting your business? Do you have a partner in your life who isn’t supportive of you, or who doesn’t make you feel loved? Do you feel like you’re working your life away in a job that doesn’t satisfy you? Courage increases when you reduce constraints: Design a 9-5 exit strategy or surround yourself with people who are supportive of you.

3. Conquer Your Fears

“Never let your fears hold you back from pursuing your hopes,” is a quote by former US president, John F. Kennedy, that merits consideration in entrepreneurship. Fear is the enemy of success. Your comfort zone is a beautiful place where nothing ever grows .

4. Set Goals and Act on Them

What does courage look like in entrepreneurship? There are many definitions, but I’d say that one of them is setting goals and acting on them. Know what you want to accomplish and put it in writing. Once you know what it is that you want to achieve, it’s time to …

5. Take Massive, Determined Action

Tony Robbins famously said, “The path to success is to take massive, determined action.” Courage is not the result of waiting; The skill to do what frightens you increases with action. With every successful step you take toward your goal, you show yourself what you’re capable of.

Related: Why Getting Ahead in Life is Hard and What You Can Do About It (4 min. read)

The hardest part of any journey is the beginning. The key to reducing the starting resistance is to eliminate restraints and fears that hold you back. Whatever ties you down needs to be eliminated, so that you can set goals and act on them. As you go about your entrepreneurial endeavour, remember: When the going gets tough, you’ll always have your support system to fall back on.

Related: In Business, What Feels Like the End is Often the Beginning  (5 min. read)

Some Great Books on Mindset

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Ryan Berman

Proactive Courage in Business

With proper training, almost anyone willing can recognize, harness, and actualize courage in their everyday lives—and, subsequently, in their businesses. Greek philosopher Aristotle considered courage to be the very first virtue because it makes all other virtues possible. To be courageous, there must first be a commitment to willingness. Or, to say it more bluntly, courage is a prerequisite for everything else that comes before you. When it comes to having difficult, but necessary conversations, you need courage. When it comes time to challenge the norms of the business, again, it takes a call for courage. You have to want to be better. And that’s not always a walk in the park. We often feel like salmon swimming up stream when we’re pushing for bolder thinking across our organizations.

If we’re going to be proactive with courage in business, we should first establish a practical definition of courage we can all agree on. Since I’m not a fan of the existing dictionary definition of courage—which lacks practicality and utility—I created my own which was the fire starter to my book Return on Courage: A Business Playbook for Courageous Change .

Here’s my working definition of courage in business: Knowledge + Faith + Action = Courage

Knowledge, faith, and action are the matchstick, tinder, and wood that work together to form the fire that is courage. The sum of these parts—and it must include all of them—makes up courage.

Courage always starts with knowledge. Obtaining knowledge is the true differentiator between doing something careless and embarking on something boldly calculated. It surely will be easier for you to take on a risk if you are educated on the topic you need to be courageous about.

Since you’re never going to be able to gather all the available knowledge on a given topic (sorry data people), at some point, you have to rely on that belief system of yours that we’ll call faith. And once you build that faith, mixed in with just enough acquired knowledge, then it’s time to do something about it. This is when it’s time to take action.

You need all three—knowledge, faith, and action—for real courage in business to be at play. Two out of three in any combination is not courageous. Here’s why:

Gathering knowledge, building faith, and then taking no action is paralysis. We’ve all been in situations where we knew what we needed to do but, for some unknown reason, didn’t pull the trigger.

Having faith and then taking action without proper knowledge is reckless. We’re back to jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Remember, courage always starts with obtaining wisdom.

Gathering knowledge then taking action without having faith is simply too safe. This is status quo. If you don’t feel a bit of nervousness on the inside, in a world saturated with choice, it’s not enough. Acquiring knowledge, building faith, and, finally, taking action is courage.

The more you grow your knowledge, and the more you grow your faith, the more courageous an action you should take. It’s almost like having an inside scoop on how a stock is going to perform. When knowledge, faith, and action are all in place, and when intuition suggests they work together in harmony, you’re on your way.

Now that we’ve got a sense of what is and isn’t courage, the following sections delve into the various elements that help to explain where we need to be proactive with our courage across our business. Why, you ask? Because 52% of the Fortune 500 will be gone in a decade and an expected 9,000 brands are expected to carousel on and off the Fortune 500 list over the next six decades. Whether we like it or not, change happens. And if you are going to proactively drive change forward and unlock change in your organization, you’ll need proactive courage to do so.

In a 2015 U.S. Innovation study by the management consulting company Accenture, American executives and managers were asked about their companies’ attitudes toward innovation. Sixty percent agreed or strongly agreed that their organization struggled to learn from past mistakes. More than 70 percent agreed or strongly agreed that opportunities to harness underdeveloped areas died because companies couldn’t find an internal home to nurture them. This makes it incredibly difficult to tip toe into the innovation space when the cards are stacked against. No doubt, change is hard—but the hardships of not addressing change will be far harder. So where to start? How about by not waiting on a true threat that could take your business down. Most companies are reactive or inactive when it comes to fighting futuristic business fears. The onus is on the day-to-day so long term thinking takes a back row seat. It’s time to flip that thinking. Every company should put in the hard work now to proactively identify a potential fear for the business. Not just because fear leads to growth but because it’s better for you to take down that fear before it takes down you. Exposing then addressing that fear forces examination and an action plan. It can kick-start innovation. It can help you fight your way back to relevancy. That fear can be flipped into your friend.

Experimentation

The “F” word is a no no across most businesses. The “F” word I’m talking about is failure. It’s time we replaced that word with the “E” word: Experiments. Creating process and infrastructure to create learning experiments are an excellent way for an organization to acquire knowledge. Many office experiments end up being perceived as failures when they are anything but. These less-than-perfect experiences gathered over a period of time help us shape how we approach the next, new innovation. Rather than placing all-or-nothing bets on the future, companies can create Experimental Task Forces (ETFs) whose role is to unearth revenue-generating opportunities before your competitors do. Wherever you need courage the most is where you should employ your ETF. Where most of your company remains ground soldiers, this ETF—a mission-focused internal “special forces” squad—gets the time, space, and budget to tackle possible future problems.

What business am I in? The creative-business business. Most business leaders don’t grasp how transformational creativity can be to their bottom line, while most creatives don’t have a clue about how their special sauce can drastically impact business. When it comes to creativity itself, I am less impressed when creative projects are showered with endless resources. Often the best creative ideas come when there’s constraint. One of the observations I try to bring forward in my book Return On Courage: A Business Playbook For Courageous Change is that courage is undoubtedly a journey word. We need to stay disciplined, focused and courageous as we tinker with our creativity in the messy middle of an initiative. Leaders, now is your time to inspire your team to creatively lean into this newfound challenge. Really, think through what this next new world needs—and consider how you can courageously contribute in a meaningful, lasting way that could change the game (and your business) forever. Creativity is the answer to making a magical culture internally and a meaningful brand or experience externally.

My personal mantra in life? I’m patiently relentless. Once I commit to a cause, I’m “all in” and at peace in pursuing that life calling. An example of this is our “rally cry in our why” purpose at Courageous: the liberation business. When companies are 1) stuck, 2) stale, 3) scared, or 4) slow, they can turn to us to help liberate their leaders, teams, ideas and thinking forward. Being patiently relentless is a commitment to the journey, and it sets an expectation of how long that journey will take. Sometimes you have to proactively commit to whatever hardships will come your way and confront that difficulty with the hope that it will lead to future triumph. Great leaders and teams show a resilient commitment to stay the course in pursuit of success, through thick and thin. Once you willingly commit, you need to make sure you have a solid foundation and surround yourself with a loyal support system that not only believes in the cause but will help you get through whatever strife comes your way.

Communication

Personal risk makes it hard for us to speak our minds. It’s especially difficult to put our reputation on the line once you’ve received approval from superiors on a proposed change. What we need to remember is that, like the stock market, life fluctuates. What was the right decision for your business a month ago may not be the right one today. There is always new information to consider as the business landscape is evolving in real time. This doesn’t mean we should be altering our strategy every time the wind blows. It means we should be open to those truths by looking for the changes around us and granting our people leeway to alert us of those changing truths as well. Honest, agile communication is the key. Even if you reached consensus just weeks earlier, if you believe changing your game plan is the right thing to do, then you should bring it to your team’s attention. Truth is, we need to put in the time to over communicate in this new pandemic world. One of the ways we do so is by creating a month survey that our clients grade us on (and we grade them on). We use our four core values of 1) Sacrifice, 2) Magic, 3) Speed, 4) Change and we grade each other on a 1 to 5 scale. This is a process that forces hard conversations and communication. It also makes sure that the relationship doesn’t slide too much where it gets to a point beyond repair.

We talk to tears about knowing our “why” in society; not much on the underrated “how.” If you like the above, and you wanted a step-by-step process on how to unlock courage in your company, pick up Return On Courage at Amazon . Or, reach out direct and I’m happy to share more about the steps we would take to transforming you into a Courage Brand®.

proactive courage in business action plan

Ryan Berman is an author, keynote speaker and the founder of Courageous; a create-the-change company that builds and leads Courage Brands®. Ryan has helped install courage in the stories and culture at Google, Kellogg’s Europe, charity: water, Major League Baseball, Snapchat, Johnson & Johnson, Cereal Partners Worldwide and US Ski & Snowboard. His book ‘Return on Courage’ shows how during these courage deficient times, courage is a competitive advantage for those leaders who choose to unlock it. Berman also has his own altruistic Courage Brand called Sock Problems: a sock company that “socks” different problems in the world.

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Courage in the Workplace

master plan for no courage in business

The Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz is known for his lack of courage, despite his imposing appearance.

In the story, he joins Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman in the hope of receiving the gift of courage from the Wizard, believing that it will help him overcome his fears and become a true king of the beasts.

Throughout the journey, the Cowardly Lion displays moments of bravery and loyalty, even though he frequently doubts his own courage.

What Is Courage?

As the story progresses, the companions encounter various challenges and obstacles, and the Cowardly Lion's journey involves facing his fears and doubts head-on.

Ultimately, when they reach the Emerald City and meet the Wizard, they discover that the qualities they sought were already present within themselves.

Importantly, the character of the Cowardly Lion represents the idea that courage is not the absence of fear , but the ability to face one's fears despite them.

The lion's transformation throughout the story highlights themes of self-discovery, personal growth, and the realization that inner strength is often more powerful than external appearance.

In essence, courage involves acting with conviction, integrity, and a sense of purpose.

In business, courage is a quality that often separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. It is the driving force that propels individuals to embrace risks, challenge norms, and drive through change.

In the workplace, courage is not just a virtue: it is a powerful tool that can shape careers, foster innovation, and elevate the overall organizational culture. However, like any tool, courage must be used wisely. While there are times when displaying courage is essential, there may be instances where "blind courage" is not the best course of action.

The Benefits of Courage

Before we explore the potential downsides of courage, here are a few of the benefits of courage in the workplace.

In a rapidly evolving business landscape, innovation is crucial for survival. Those who dare to challenge the status quo and bring fresh ideas to the table often lead the way. It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone and propose unconventional solutions that may lead to significant breakthroughs.

Speaking Up

Courageous employees aren't afraid to voice their opinions – even when they go against the majority. When an employee points out potential flaws in a project or strategy, they demonstrate courage that benefits the entire team.

Courage also means standing up for colleagues who might be facing challenges or injustices. Organizational, cultural, and social change would simply not be possible without people being courageous enough to stand up to injustices.

Calculated Risks

Every successful venture involves an element of risk. Employees who possess the courage to take well-considered risks might luck out with boosted career growth, and even financial gains.

Championing Change

Change can be daunting but is essential for growth. Employees who show courage in advocating for change such as new processes, new technology, or cultural shifts, become valuable change agents within the organization.

Addressing Conflicts

Courageous individuals are willing to address conflicts or issues that arise in the workplace. They do so constructively, aiming to resolve conflicts rather than allowing them to fester and harm team dynamics.

Admitting Mistakes

Displaying vulnerability by admitting mistakes takes courage. Such openness fosters a culture of learning and growth within the team.

The Dangers of Courage

There is a fine line between bravery and stupidity. Despite the positives that can come from demonstrating courage in the right way, at the right time, it is worth reflecting on the situations where courage may not serve us so well.

Reckless Decision-Making

While courage can drive positive change, it can also lead to recklessness if not tempered with thoughtful analysis. Acting on impulse without proper research or planning can result in costly mistakes.

Ignoring Feedback

Courageous individuals may become so invested in their own ideas that they shut out constructive criticism. This can hinder personal growth, as well as impact the success of projects. So it is important to listen to input from colleagues.

Conflict Escalation

Courageous conversations are important, but they must be approached with diplomacy and respect. Unchecked courage can turn discussions into confrontations, which can damage relationships and teamwork.

Overstepping Boundaries

Misplaced courage can sometimes lead employees to overstep their roles and responsibilities, causing friction and misunderstandings within the team. It is essential to have a clear understanding of our role and consider our courageous actions in context.

How to Be More Courageous at Work

Courage is undeniably a valuable trait in the workplace, driving innovation, change, and growth. It can empower individuals to take risks, speak up, and challenge norms. However, while it can lead to remarkable things, courageousness should always be balanced with critical thinking, open-mindedness, and a respect for others' perspectives.

In essence, courage involves acting with conviction, integrity, and a sense of purpose. It involves creating an environment that supports and rewards courageous behavior and a culture of increased innovation, better problem-solving, and a more engaged and motivated workforce.

Like the Cowardly Lion, finding our own courage at work can be a winding path. Sometimes we will display moments of bravery and loyalty, even though we may be wracked with doubt and uncertainty. But, as The Wizard of Oz taught us, all we really have to do to act with courage is to remember that courage is already present within ourselves.

You may like to take a look at the following Mind Tools resources, then join the coaches' events to share your thoughts, ask questions and learn more.

Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work (Book Insight)

Brave Leadership (Book Insight)

Assertiveness (Skillbook)

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About the Author

Sarah is an experienced and qualified leadership, culture and conflict coach. An author, skilled trainer, facilitator, manager mentor, and workplace mediator, Sarah has over 30 years of experience to draw on. Following a career as an HR leader and consultant, she now loves coaching leaders and teams to improve their results through developing better workplace relationships and creating savvy conversational cultures. Away from work, Sarah can be found in her garden or perhaps writing her next book.

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Building Self-Confidence and Courage In Business for Introverts

How familiar does this sound?

Are you afraid of putting yourself out there? Of approaching your boss and team with an idea? Of speaking up when a coworker undermines you? Of asking for the raise you deserve? Do you sometimes need help and feel too anxious to ask for it? Do you feel like there will always be someone more experienced, more creative, more charismatic that deserves an opportunity you want?

Navigating the business world as an introvert can often feel like you’re stepping into hostile territory. It’s an extroverted world out there, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up. There is nothing wrong with being introverted. This is your superpower.

These upcoming tips are just a boost to help you navigate business. Today, our topic is building self-confidence and courage in business for introverts. Let’s get started!

If the previously mentioned thoughts are the kind of mindset that keeps you from taking action in your workplace, then you’re in the right place.

building self confidence in business

The 5 Second Rule

by Mel Robins

⏱ 15 minutes reading time

🎧 Audio version available

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Draw Power From Your Clothes

Yes, today’s world is an extroverted one where most people assume people who hold center stage are the only ones that are confident. But this is actually a misconception. Just because someone is the heart and soul of the party and is often loud and attracts boisterous attitudes from those around them doesn’t mean that they’re as confident and courageous as you think.

The same goes for people who are perceived as reserved, who are more softly spoken. Just because they’re not shouting with the rest of the boardroom doesn’t mean that they lack confidence. Being introverted doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to be self-conscious and too anxious to take action.

Here is what you can do to get one step closer towards building an unshakeable confidence that can easily match and level the confidence of extroverts around you. Step number one? Draw power from the way your dress.

Dressing well doesn’t just make people pay positive attention to you, but it has the added bonus of making you feel good about yourself. Most importantly, it makes you feel more confident. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go out and buy something that’s ridiculously expensive. Just put on an outfit that fits well, is appropriate for the occasion– whether it’s for work or for a function or event.

If you feel confident enough to venture into “courageous” territory, then consider wearing something that stands out a little as a conversation starter to give people a reason to strike up a conversation with you.

Make Your Body Language Speak For You

Confidence and courage are related. A lot of people struggle with confidence, wanting more of it. You may feel that confidence is the thing that is going to help you advance your career, land clients, ask for raises, et cetera, but when you’re saying that you want more confidence, you may actually also mean to say that you want more courage.

Confidence is essential to make it in the business world, but courage? That’s what’s going to get your foot out the door.

What if we told you that one immediate sign of both courage and confidence is proper body language? Standing up straight, chin held high, and with an open body language can immediately make you feel powerful enough to take on a presentation.

For this particular moment, your comfort zone when it comes to body language and posture may include folded arms when you’re feeling defensive, crossed legs, hunched shoulders, looking down, hands in your pockets, etc. While these movements often act as a protective barrier against the world and make you feel safer, they should be avoided as much as possible if you’re trying to build up your self-confidence.

You don’t need to be an expert in body language, but know that even just appearing relaxed helps you look and feel more authoritative. Long before you say a word, you can display your courage by carrying yourself the right way. Remember that you’re sending strong messages to your coworkers about who you are and how you feel about yourself.

So are you ready for this? Hold that chin up, roll your shoulders back, distribute your weight evenly on both feet. Practise this long and regularly enough, and you’ll feel beyond relaxed and confident in your own skin.

Ask Questions

Every introvert knows the struggle of feeling too anxious to ask a question. But this is one hack to navigate social situations, both on a personal and a professional level.

When in doubt– whether the conversation has stalled, you’re trying to work up the courage for something, etc– the key is to deflect the conversation away from yourself. You can do that by asking people questions. You’ll still be playing an active role in the conversation, but the attention will be less stressful and allow you to gather yourself.

And if you don’t know what to ask someone, try to remember something the other person has said about themselves and ask them if they expand on that. If that doesn’t work, keep watching because we’re going to cover how to navigate conversations in the workplace in a moment!

The more you ask questions, the more you break down that fear of asking someone for help.

Focus on Your Strengths

Passionate about what you do? Have lots of ideas you want to offer? Have valuable insight but you don’t know what to do?

Draw on the strengths you already have. You have the content. If you’re not the sort to give grand speeches, then that’s fine. In order to approach life with gusto and bravery, you don’t have to act like someone else. Your thoughts and ideas are valuable enough on their own, and that is your strength.

The Six Rules

The next time you’re at a meeting, a social function, or if you’re just engaging in a conversation with colleagues, try following the golden rules– aka, Dale Cargenie’s guidelines.

In his tried and true book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” he maps out six ways to make people like you. Confidence appears in the way you interact with people.

These six methods will establish the foundation for your future success. In other words, this is how you can confidently approach your coworkers. Number one is to be genuinely interested in other people.

Number two is to remember to smile; three is to remember that a person’s name is the most important sound in the world and across all language; number four is to be a good listener and to encourage others to talk about themselves; five is to talk in the terms of the other person’s interest, and finally, number six is to make sure you make the other person feel important and do it with sincerity.

Practise Being Center Stage

It takes guts to be the center stage, so for this next tip, here is a bit of an untraditional route. Want to do a test run and practise your new habits? Admittedly, the first few times you try this in real life, there are bound to be some errors and missteps. It happens to everyone.

But you can lessen the shock of the first time you gather up your courage to speak up and find all eyes on you. This untraditional method involves using technology to simulate reality. One of the most effective ways to mimic the actual event is to use virtual reality. This is where you can connect your phone into a virtual reality headset to immerse yourself in another environment.

Now, you can practise and make errors if you want. Get used to what it feels like to be in the center stage. And hey, you’ll be in the safety of virtual reality.

Charge Your Social Battery

Every introvert knows that even among family and friends, your social battery may often feel drained. This lies the main difference between introverts and extroverts– where you get your energy from.

If you look at an extrovert, you’ll find that they often draw their energy from engaging with other people. The more people they engage with, the more energetic and charged they are.

However, introverts on the other hand can often get their energy from being alone. With each extensive social interaction, their energy drains. If you plan on approaching life with confidence, then you need to strategize, and you can’t do that on an empty battery.

Make a time during your way, whether that’s during your lunch hour or even just simple bathroom breaks, and take this time to recharge. Consider having a strategic hour of alone time before you enter an important meeting or a particularly stressful networking event.

This allows you to approach others re-energized, helping you engage more easily with others. Most notably, this allows you to communicate confidence easily with your colleagues.

Don’t Be Afraid to Talk About Your Accomplishments

Do you often witness the more extroverted type getting more promotions and leadership opportunities? That’s because they’re more used to self-promotion. They are not afraid to let others, including their bosses, know about their accomplishments.

Now, there is a distinction between self-promoting and bragging about yourself. Bragging is driven by ego while on the other hand, self-promotion is all about being driven by your accomplishments. It’s not wrong to let others know what you achieved.

Build your bravery by finding or creating opportunities where you can talk about your contributions to successful projects and mention your ideas.

Business doesn’t have to make you feel like you don’t have a place unless you’re constantly struggling for it. And building self-confidence and courage as an introvert isn’t as impossible as some people make it out to be. Ready to take on the business world?

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master plan for no courage in business

Founder Series #1 – The Beginning (Part 3)

Everyone has a desire, a dream, or an aspiration to do something new or different than what they are currently doing. Sometimes it takes in the form of a new job or starting a new company. The hardest part for many people is having the courage to start and begin a new journey.

As a child, I had always wanted to run my own business. At first, I thought I was going to run an architectural firm. I discovered that I liked drawing and being creative. I loved the idea that I could conceptualize an idea for a place and create something that I could pass by every day, knowing that I somehow contributed to the experiences inside these spaces. 

My father started his business when he retired, and many of my relatives were entrepreneurial, selling products at markets and shops. I knew I had an entrepreneurial gene that I could use growing up. As a child, I thought that to run a company, I needed many years of experience to get started. So naturally, I was trading time to build skills. Without realizing it, I was building entrepreneurship skills all this time. 

Most of my career was spent in and out of contract positions. I could never seem to land a full-time job, and I took whatever short-term roles I could get. Partially to survive and pay my bills, but the other, which I didn’t realize at the time, was the opportunity to develop new skills and experiences. Usually, my to-be employers were desperately late trying to find candidates to fill a role that they needed yesterday, and I would come across as a great catch. They will be looking for someone who is highly educated  – a computer science degree. Check. Immediately available – not working at the time. Check. And highly driven to deliver – cause-the-project-is-falling-way-behind-schedule-and-I-am-not-sure-if-we-can-pull-it-off. 

I would come in and work hard to get the project completed and exceed expectations. Suddenly, I find myself in a new industry learning the ropes of the business. I’ve worked in insurance, banking, travel, retail, sporting, education, international relations, community development, events, and so many more. I’ve probably worked with over 20 companies.  I always took pride in doing my job really well because if I were to be honest, I was secretly hoping that the company would love me so much that they would find a way to hire me long term. But they all ended up looking like a one night stand. They get what they want and say, see ya. 

Interestingly, I didn’t know that I was developing a entrepreneurial skills by doing all of that. I was learning how to sell myself to attract new people and job opportunities despite no industry experience. I’d wear many hats managing multiple projects and responsibilities at a time. I hadn’t realized that I was playing the life of an entrepreneur all my life.  I had the tools in my back pocket all along. I only require an idea to get started.

There are no shortages of problems in this world, which is why it is fascinating to be a human being. Nothing is ever solved and done in our society; we are continually evolving. I must admit that I grew up without a cellphone when I was a kid. (Yes, I’m a lot older than you think.) I remember the first time when I saw a cellphone. My sister was a flight attendant for a Canadian airline, and on-call employees were allowed to carry a cellphone on their day off just in case they need to work. It was a massive portable phone, bigger than the landline phone. I never knew that that big portable phone will later become the start of my business and entrepreneurship. Cell phones evolved, and one idea took it to another. Suddenly we started to own smartphones, and now our smartphones have become more than just a phone but our wallets, our mp3 players, and an essential for someone who has hearing loss.

The minute you are passionate about addressing a problem and think that you have what it takes to be part of the solution to that problem, you are ready to be an entrepreneur or an employee of a company. I don’t want to make any statement that everyone should run a business, but I want you to understand that passion and skills are enough for you to get started in any endeavor you want to do.

A lot of us with hearing loss are holding ourselves back. We try to make an assumption that we aren’t being realistic. A lot of people may think that it is not realistic to be a deaf pilot. How does one communicate with the air traffic controller? Or is it not practical to be a hard of hearing nurse? How does one be responsible for a sick patient that can only speak softly? Or it’s not realistic to be a deaf police officer. How do you respond when the criminal may be close by?

Many people will tell you that it is not realistic, but many people are pilots, nurses, and police officers and have hearing loss. The issue is that there aren’t enough of them because biases and beliefs are stopping many people from even getting started and trying.  What you have, your skills and passion are needed somewhere, and you can’t let the belief of others tell you that you can’t do it. Many people try to stop you out of fear. They worry you’ll be upset if it won’t work out. You have the right to share your passion and skills with the world. That’s your purpose in life.

The hearing loss community need to use biases to our advantage. We have to learn how to be bold in challenging other people’s perceptions. We often think it’s their job to know the difference. Those who don’t understand our capabilities have blocked themselves from seeing anything otherwise. It’s their loss. Some people are stubborn in believing that their route is the only route to take only because it worked for them. It is hard to challenge those beliefs, but there’s a way, and that is through you. You need to be a shining example that makes them see something new and different. It is no longer exciting for the expected to do the expected but for the unexpected to do the expected. Suddenly, we have something interesting to look forward to.

Another thing that you have to your advantage is that you already, by default, are underestimated by what you can and can’t do. This means that you have the opportunity to start working in a career and a job that works best for you, and you will excel. You naturally find ways where you can do well. You don’t have to follow the tried and true path that others expect to follow and exceed.

I am not saying that starting and continuing any new endeavor is going to be easy. When you start something that you have never done before, it’s hard work. But the formula and the path everyone says you should follow never works for us. It’s one of the biggest lessons you have to learn running a business or starting an exciting career. We just can’t take the formula that others have done and repeat it and achieve the same or better results. It never works. The roadblocks keep appearing over and over again, and it can wear you down. Look for opportunities that fit with you. I’d love to share a few with you in future Founder Series posts. There’s a possibility, a niche way of doing things that you can use for your advantage.

October is National Disability Employment Month. We often leave the month the way it started, and nothing takes shape. Deaf and hard of hearing people continue to be unemployed and underemployed. By reading this blog, I hope you can see opportunities for yourself and start something meaningful today. Start looking at that job you wished you had but thought you didn’t belong. Start looking at the business idea that you had but keep postponing until you are ready. Realize that the skills that you need are already here. Your passion and desire is just a clue to get started.

If you started your business or a new career, comment below what push you to start?

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Advanced Technology in Action

Courage in business.

master plan for no courage in business

When we use the word, courage , it normally conjures up the image of a lone, brave individual making an action of incredible heroic, fearless, boldness. Most of us would never dream or even be able to behave in this manner. Our own limitations hold us back.

In business, we need to have courage too.

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” Sir Winston Churchill

Sometimes, we need to go beyond our own safe worlds and step out into the spotlight to do whatever needs to be done. We need to be a whistle-blower and expose some wrongdoing, or to distance ourselves from a popular project as it may harm the business, or stand up to the Board of Directors to request support for an unpopular project that you know needs to be done. All of these dilemmas demand courage.

Courage is the quality that distinguishes great leaders from excellent managers.

Courageous leaders take risks that go against the grain of their organizations. They make decisions with the potential for revolutionary change in their markets. Their boldness inspires their teams, energizes customers, and positions their companies as leaders in societal change.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Steve Jobs

The dictionary definition of courage is “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear.” Courageous leaders lead with principles — their True North — that guide them when pressure mounts. They don’t shirk bold actions because they fear failure. They don’t need external adulation, nor do they shrink from facing criticism.

Courage is neither an intellectual quality, nor can it be taught in the classroom. It can only be gained through multiple experiences involving personal risk-taking. Courage comes from the heart. As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “ The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart. ”

master plan for no courage in business

It takes bold decisions to build great global companies. If businesses are managed without courageous leadership, then R&D programs, product pipelines, investments in emerging markets, and employees’ commitment to the company’s mission all wither. These organizations can slip into malaise and may eventually fail, even if their leaders can move on to avoid being held accountable.

Courageous leadership is not just for business leaders. Politicians need to be brave and lead too.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ Eleanor Roosevelt

As the number of coronavirus cases kept climbing worldwide this past week, former United States President Barack Obama offered some simple advice for mayors and local leaders battling outbreaks in cities across the globe: “ Speak the truth. ”

“ The biggest mistake any [of] us can make in these situations is to misinform, ” Obama said during a virtual meeting organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies, “ particularly when we’re requiring people to make sacrifices and take actions that might not be their natural inclination. ”

Obama’s comments, addressed to local officials and members of response teams from more than 300 cities, come as millions of people worldwide remain confined indoors, their movements largely restricted by governments attempting to stem the spread of a virus that has no vaccine or scientifically proven treatment. With many feeling fearful and anxious while misinformation about the coronavirus continues running rampant on social media, Obama emphasized the power of truth.

master plan for no courage in business

There are different types of courage, ranging from physical strength and endurance to mental stamina and innovation. The list below is the six different ways in which we define courage. Which are most relevant to you?

  • Feeling Fear Yet Choosing to Act
  • Following Your Heart
  • Persevering in the Face of Adversity
  • Standing Up For What Is Right
  • Expanding Your Horizons; Letting Go of the Familiar
  • Facing Suffering With Dignity or Faith

Give it a try. Even if reacting with fear has been a life-long habit, you can change it. Take the mask off the monster and look it straight in the eye. You can even try laughing.

Oh, what a difference it makes.

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” Mark Twain

————————–MJM ————————–

References:

Biali Haas, S. (2018). Choose Courage Instead of Reacting in Fear. Psychology Today: Sussex Publishers, LLC. Retrieved on April 13, 2020, from, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/prescriptions-life/201804/choose-courage-instead-reacting-in-fear

Chiu, A. (2020). ‘Speak the truth’: Obama says ‘biggest mistake’ mayors can make in coronavirus pandemic is to misinform the public. The Washington Post. Retrieved on April 13, 2020, from, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/10/obama-coronavirus-misinformation/

Greenberg, M. (2012). The Six Attributes of Courage . Psychology Today: Sussex Publishers, LLC. Retrieved on April 13, 2020, from, https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-mindful-self-express/201208/the-six-attributes-courage

HBS Working Knowledge Contributor. (2017). Courage: The Defining Characteristic Of Great Leaders . Forbes. Retrieved on April 13, 2020, from, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-personal-shopper/2020/03/18/best-home-office-chairs/#cfd2d2c71e32

About the Author:

Michael Martin has more than 35 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies.

He is a business and technology consultant. A recent contract was with Wirepas from Tampere, Finland as the Director of Business Development. Over the past 15 years with IBM, he has worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).

Martin currently serves on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and previously served on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). 

He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now OntarioTech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario.  For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section. 

He holds three master’s degrees, in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and five certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has earned 15 badges in next generation MOOC continuous education in IoT, Cloud, AI and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, and more .

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Managing the Business From a Master Plan

master plan for no courage in business

Although corporations within the U.S. spend approximately $300 billion per year on training, permanent change will occur only when an organization’s infrastructure elicits, reinforces, and even demands desired leadership behaviors. Research shows that only about 10-20% of the knowledge gained from training actually transfers to the job. The challenge and opportunity is to translate knowledge and skills into practices that actually improve organizational performance.

This article is part of a series about how to build good leadership practices into the infrastructure of your organization.  In my last two newsletters, I’ve discussed the following guidelines for instilling good leadership in your organization:

  • Focus all your leaders on a shared definition (standard) or paradigm of good leadership behavior
  • Set the example at the top
  • Create a forum for feedback between leaders and their employees

Another guideline to ensure both the development and effectiveness of leaders is to manage the business from a master plan. Although this seems to be a simple notion, managers and supervisors in most organizations readily admit they are in a fire-fighting mode, reacting to the demands of the moment rather than acting from a predetermined agenda of what they want to accomplish.

A lack of a master plan results in a vicious circle from which escape is very difficult.  The less people plan, the more an atmosphere of chaos and urgency reign. And the more urgency and chaos people experience, the more difficult they perceive it to be to take time to plan. The consequence is they are forever attacking symptoms while leaving intact the root causes of organizational problems. Although many factors contribute to a climate of chaos, perhaps the most important is a lack of planning and perception that “we just don’t have the time.”

A secondary consequence of this vicious circle is that it sets leaders up to be overly involved in day-to-day affairs and to micromanage the business. This practice demoralizes employees and causing them to conclude that they are neither trusted nor able to  make a difference in the organization. Nothing happens without the involvement of the manager or supervisor.

By managing from a plan, leaders pay attention to the “big-picture” and what matters most. They work (to borrow a phrase from Edwards Demming) “on systems not in systems” and thereby gradually eliminate the root causes of problems. Doing this requires a culture which values planning and organizing skills. Below are the steps in creating such  a plan.

Step #1: Identify Critical Success Factors

Critical success factors (CSFs) are a set of concise statements, usually bullet points, that represent what the organization must accomplish in order to achieve its mission. The list should include no more than 8 items, each expressing a single theme. CSFs cannot be thought of as actions, “how-tos”, nor as directly manageable. Together, they represent the conditions, which if achieved, will guarantee that the organization will accomplish its mission and achieve maximum success.

Step #2: Identify Major Action-Initiatives

The action-initiatives are the specific tasks that must be carried out in order to achieve the critical success factors. They are actions that define the “how to” of achieving the organization’s mission and are directly manageable and measurable. Each action-initiative must have a significant and direct impact upon at least one of the critical success factors. They are the means by which the organization can achieve the critical success factors.

The senior management team accomplishes this task by considering each CSF one at a time and coming up with a list of major action-initiatives that will result in the accomplishment of that CSF. Once they have done that for each critical success factor, they search for common patterns or themes or opportunities to combine certain initiatives to avoid redundancies of effort. Each action-initiative, from the final list, should be focused and independent.

Step #3:  Sequence the Action-Initiatives

It is not possible to implement all initiatives at the same time. A common management error is trying to do everything at once and, consequently, not doing anything well. It is necessary to achieve excellence and closure on fewer projects rather than attempting to do everything at once. Finding that balance in a competitive and demanding environment is not easy. The management team will need to decide which initiatives they need to begin immediately and which should be delayed to a later time. The management team will revisit the initiatives on a regular basis and  add new initiatives as others come to fruition.

Step #4: Complete an Simple Action Matrix

Across the top are critical success factors and down the left side are the action-initiatives. The action-initiatives should be entered on the chart in the order in which each will be initiated. In addition to listing the initiatives, the chart should be completed by identifying the CSFs impacted by each initiative by placing a check mark in the corresponding box. The number of CSFs impacted is then listed in a column on the right hand side of the page. Which initiative has the greatest impact upon the largest number of critical success factors? Which has the second greatest impact, and so on. Although such a forced-choice may seem difficult, it forces the management team to think carefully about each initiative and achieve a greater understanding of the value and implications of each. The final column lists the name of the “champion” who assumes major accountability for the action initiative.

Step #5: Establish Accountability

Once the priority and sequencing of initiatives has been determined, it is necessary to establish accountability by assigning a “champion” to each.  The champion is a member of the management team who assumes primary responsibility for the accomplishment of that particular initiative. Although the entire team shares responsibility and will participate to some degree in its success, this person is charged with “ownership.” Although other people from throughout the organization will participate in project teams that work on some of the initiatives,  the final accountability must come back to the senior leadership team.

Step #6: Clarify Project Parameters

Although primary accountability for each action initiative resides with one member of the leadership team, all team members continue to share responsibility for its success. One way in which they continue to play a role in the overall success of an initiative is by specifying the boundary conditions or parameters that will guide the endeavor. Many of the initiatives will be “handed-off” to a project team, including the champion. The project team is given a definition of their purpose, time-frame, resources, and expected outcomes to guide them in their work.

Step #7: Commissioning Project Teams

The champion and perhaps a few other members of the leadership team meet with the individuals participating on the project team to orient them to the purpose, parameters and scope of the initiative. They review with them the purpose, desired outcomes, resources, constraints, etc. of the project and how this project fits with the overall strategy and direction of the business as a whole. The project team, working within the parameters established by the senior leadership team, is responsible for further planning and implementation of the project. They report back to the senior leadership team regularly during the life of the project and when they complete their work.

The method takes some time to complete but brings good discipline to the business. The plan helps define the core work of the senior management team and helps ensure that leaders, at all levels, are coordinating their work and spending time on value-added activities.

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COMMENTS

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  22. Courage in Business

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  23. Managing the Business From a Master Plan

    Below are the steps in creating such a plan. Step #1: Identify Critical Success Factors . Critical success factors (CSFs) are a set of concise statements, usually bullet points, that represent what the organization must accomplish in order to achieve its mission. The list should include no more than 8 items, each expressing a single theme.