For most managers, the hard part about managing isn’t keeping things organized, meeting deliverable dates, or staying on budget. The hard part about managing is all the people stuff. Managers grow frustrated when people are slow to change, slow to trust, and slow to get things done. Managers struggle most when their people don’t take on work outside their own scope, when the only thing their people seem to care about is the itty bitty task right in front of them. Managers hate dealing with all the crybaby excuses, finger-pointing and poor attitudes that get in the way of doing actual work. In short, the hard part about managing is having to motivate workers who are either too comfortable doing things the way they’ve always done or too afraid to do things differently. The problem is that too many workers are too comfortable, too afraid, or too much of both. This book helps managers address the problem of workers who are comfeartable. Comfeartable workers don’t exert themselves anymore than they have to. They equate “just enough” with good enough, and are satisfied meeting only a minimum standard of performance. Like a sofa loaded down with overstuffed relatives after a holiday dinner, teams of comfeartable workers become lethargic and are heavy with the weight of mediocrity.
This book proposes that a manager’s success, happiness and longevity depends on how he or she deals with comfeartable workers. The antidote to comfeartableness, as this book explains, is courage. When courage goes to work, workers they take on more challenging or complex projects. When courage goes to work people actively seek out tasks that stretched their skills and capabilities. When courage goes to work speak up more frequently, forcefully, and truthfully. When courage goes to work people say “yes” to company changes with more enthusiasm. When courage goes to work people are less risk-averse, less self-conscious, and less apathetic. And when courage goes to work, people do less brownnosing, ass-covering, and complaining. This book is all about helping people bring their courage to work.
The goal of this book is to build workforce courage by focusing on specific things managers can do to help their people be more courageous. The benefit to the manager is that courage will cause their people to more readily trust their decisions instead of silently resisting their every move. Their workers will be more likely to raise the red flag on projects that are going south, instead of hiding issues until they fester into full blown catastrophes. Courageous workers are candid and engaged during status meetings, instead of politely nodding their head “yes” every time their managers talk. Courageous workers try things outside their skill sets, deliberately seek out leadership opportunities, and offer ground-breaking (but tradition-defying) ideas.