The movie, “The Untouchables,” profiles the fight between gangster Al Capone and Elliott Ness and his personally picked squad of “untouchables.” Before they set out on their first raid on a Capone warehouse, an agent warns Ness that everyone in Chicago knows where to find liquor, despite Prohibition laws. The real question is who has the courage to cross Capone.
This year may have left you feeling like you’ve been drafted as an Untouchable, wondering if you had the courage to take on the trouble in your path. But the silver lining is that you are walking away a stronger person. In the November series, Make Courage Personal, we’ll discuss how you can combine the lessons you’ve learned with soft skills to create a new definition of courage that is lasting and made just for you.
The twists and turns of 2020 have shown that true courage is multi-faceted. It requires strength in the face of injustice, finding the capacity to face perceived weaknesses, facing adversity with boldness, and confronting mistakes with humility. Let me tell you how a famous President found the courage to transform an embarrassing defeat into a life lesson.
John Kennedy was certain he was taking the right course of action by sending troops to Cuba in 1961. The premise was simple: American troops would support Cubans opposing Fidel Castro, and the communist government would be overthrown. Kennedy thought it would be a quick in-and-out covert operation, but things went terribly wrong. Castro stayed in power, and thousands of people were killed or captured.
The surprising part of the story is that Kennedy’s greatest moment of courage wasn’t in undertaking the action—it happened afterwards. Kennedy called one of his biggest detractors and the last person he thought he would ask for advice—former President Eisenhower—and asked for help with his mistake. As they talked through the timeline at Camp David, Eisenhower identified every error along the way, the most important of which was the lack of stakeholder consensus. From Eisenhower’s perspective, getting the strategy right was built on hearing out every angle including military, intelligence, and foreign relations experts.
In the past, when we thought of someone courageous, we thought of the rugged individualist, who faced and solved problems on their own. But that model is a myth. John Kennedy discovered that solely relying on his perspective was a miserable failure, and the same notion goes today. Barreling ahead on your own without all the information isn’t courageous—it’s reckless.
Instead, true courage demands investing time and energy to find the best answer. Finding consensus may stretch every soft skill you have—you’ll be required to listen with empathy, employ creative thinking, and practice enough flexibility to say that someone else in the room has a better idea. Once all voices have been heard and the results are in, make the best choice by practicing the Soul Boss principle of combining your instincts with your intellect.
Take a few minutes to sketch out ways you like to build consensus, so a single opinion doesn’t become the boss of you. For instance, you might say, “I build consensus by ___”, such as:
* I build consensus by doing more research
* I build consensus by seeking expert advice
* I build consensus by listening to different perspectives
The next time you hear yourself insisting there’s only one way, warning bells should go off in your head. Don’t leap into a slapdash answer because you’re irritated—build consensus and conquer that tough situation with a new kind of courage.