Leadership Isn't For Cowards: How to Drive Performance by Challenging People and Confronting Problems

Chapter 27

Just How Different Are You?

Most companies talk about innovation, differentiation, and gaining a competitive edge. At the same time, many fear actively exploring and doing different things because that requires a certain amount of risk, and most people have pretty specific risk tolerance levels deeply ingrained in them. For some, reading about my skydiving adventure in Chapter 14 was scary. For others, it was exciting. But for almost everyone, it was not a normal, everyday type of story. It was out of the ordinary. It was different.

This chapter is about pushing the envelope, challenging conventional wisdom, and refusing to settle for the way things have always been. You no doubt have people in your organization who are averse to change, constantly singing the familiar song, “We’ve always done it this way.” By this point, though, you should realize that being creative and applying that creativity are necessary parts of your leadership. Challenging your people to constantly think differently is a courageous process. If you can solve problems, communicate well, and play well with others, as we discussed in the last chapter, but you can’t challenge your people to think and create, then you are in for a frustrating leadership experience (unless of course you’re the kind of leader who prefers people to just keep their heads down and not ask questions, but somehow I don’t think you would have gotten this far in this book if you were one of those people). “If it ain’t broke, ...