L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders - Courage America: Reinventing Corporate Culture to Value Brave Action over Business As Usual

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

When so much of our organizational focus is locked on hitting on quarterly goals and keeping up with unpredictable technological change, playing it safe feels right. Rather than dive headlong into an uncertain future or challenge our assumptions about how we serve our customers, “business as usual” avoids risk. But what if it was bold action that was most likely to achieve our goals? Courage catalyst Ryan Berman joins us this week to share how leaders can release themselves from feeling stuck, scared, stale or safe, in favor of bravery.

You're listening to L&D in Action, winning strategies from learning leaders. This podcast, presented by Get Abstract, brings together the brightest minds in learning and development to discuss the best strategies for fostering employee engagement, maximizing potential and building a culture of learning in your organization. This week, I'm chatting with Ryan Berman. Ryan is a keynote speaker, author, and instigator of the corporate courage movement. After years working at renowned

New York advertising agencies, Ryan took his creative chops the entrepreneurial route. Through his courageous brand, he has worked with C-suites all over to galvanize people, inspire leaders, and celebrate courageous action in life and in business. His client roster features Google, Kraft Heinz, Major League Baseball, and a ton more. Through his courageous podcast and

while writing his book Return on Courage, Ryan has interviewed hundreds of world-class individuals, from Navy SEALs and astronauts to education leaders at Harvard and business leaders from the Fortune 500. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host Tyler Le and today I'm speaking to stream a Fortune 500. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host Tyler Lay and today I'm speaking with Ryan Berman. Ryan, it's wonderful to see you my good friend. Welcome to the show, thanks for joining me.

Hey man, good to see you. Thanks for having me. Of course, of course. Ryan, your latest little dose of courage, that's your newsletter, I believe it was titled Be Professional and in the word professional you bolded the letters R-E-A-L, real.

I wanna get real with you in this first question here if you don't mind. I do actually consider you a good friend of mine, a true friend and that started from the first time that we shot together, the first time that we worked together, which was probably, I don't know, four, almost five years ago now.

It was very easy to work with you. You came in the studio, you know, we had a great rapport from the start. You were fun and funny. You know, we spoke about your family. I learned a lot about you right away. And that isn't always the case when I work with folks and when I make content with people.

This piece, Be Professional, Be Real, is about the sort of change in what it means to actually go to work and be around your coworkers. The sort of distance that we've come from, you know, suit and tie every day in an office to the decentralized and sort of fragmented workspaces, but how we behave with each other. So there used to be a very masked way of behaving at work where we show up from the commute and we behave in, you know, the sort of business professional manner. And now we're gradually moving toward a more friendly style of working with each other. But it's not complete.

That transition isn't complete. And ultimately, I do think that we need to get to that capability of being real, which is what you're advocating for in this piece that you wrote. So I'd like to ask you, how do we do that? It's not an easy thing, especially since we have as many as four or five generations working in the workplace at once from Gen Z and soon Gen Alpha all the way up to Boomers and Gen X and the silent generation.

So how do we do that? How do we come to work in a way that is present? How do we shed that sort of several generations of training as what it means to actually come to work and behave at work and socialize at work How do we shed that in favor of being real with each other in a way that's safe and also productive? Well, if we're gonna be real, I think we really did hit it off when I met you Look, it does it's just a data point when if life is nothing more than you know

The the the rock skipping across the pond and like as you skip to the next life When you actually keep in touch with people into a new life Right cuz last we met I think you were living on the West. I was yeah You're in you're in the East right train down from LA. So so I feel the same way about you I think it's like keeping it real is what it's all about being professional today is is being real. And one, you've got five generations that are colliding in the workforce today for the first time. And I think maybe part of the problem is that each of the generations has a different idea. A

different version of what they perceive be real means. Oh, absolutely. No doubt about that. Right. So the problem was I think the generation before my generation and I'm a lot older than you said you're lucky to have a job. Get in somewhere, roll up your sleeves,

bite your lip, put your head down, chop wood. 30 years later, grab a watch, right? Those were our OG mentors teaching us that that was what life was all about at work. And then some of that sprinkled in, you know, we try to be good mentors and stewards too. And we tend to tell the next generation, hey, some version of that, with maybe a little dash of humanity baked in. And then we wise up at a point where we're in a certain part in our careers are like,

wait a minute, this seems, this sort of seems messed up. Now, I think because I came out of advertising at first, my whole career was about body jumping, right? It's like jumping in the audience of the person you're trying to connect with and understand what life is really like for them. So that muscle is strong, right? I had no choice but to learn that muscle.

And the more you look at it, the more you're like, oh, wait a minute, this is, the amount of leaders I've met who have actually said things like, millennials are entitled. That's the same leader that I've met who have actually said things like millennials are entitled. That's the same leader that I'm like, okay, you're going to lose all of your most talented millennials. If you think that and Tyler, you know, I get to do a lot of keynotes. I have this slide that says, it says if they don't buy in, they're out first of all. So 75% of your workforce, they need them. They need to buy in and believe. And then the next slide is on millennials, like they want to have their cake, they want to eat it too.

And then what the cake to be gluten free. And, and as the leader, it's your job to create that space. Because if your cake is not delicious and gluten free, they're going to find the good ones are going to go find it somewhere else. And then the real question is, well, who are you left with? So creating that environment where you're real and we're just we're all just mirrors. And you're gonna if I'm a jerk, you're gonna be a jerk. If I if I kind of give off that that that energy vibe that you're entitled, you're gonna feel that and you're gonna absolutely back away. Right. So so I think being real, it starts with

understanding that like people want to really be them. And if you if you're real, hopefully they're gonna be real. I'm glad that you brought up advertising and marketing, because that was actually kind of my pre-prepared follow-up to this question is an observation that advertisers and in particular commercial makers over the last like five decades or so to me have had so much influence on, I mean, they have a lot of influence on society

because of just the volume of television that we've all watched and that sort of thing and advertising that we consume. But in my lifetime, I have seen commercials on TV progress from strong messages about the value of this product or this service to non sequitur humor. Like you have the classic industries like insurance where you have Allstate and Liberty Mutual and Progressive

just fighting to be the best comedy commercial maker. Like they barely even talk about their products anymore. And that's because these things, you know, everybody has to have car insurance or whatever it is. So the market is, you know, there's an existing mandatory demand there. But ultimately I've seen this progression of ads and commercials go from like serious,

like we are gonna help you in your life. We're gonna make your life better to laugh at us, like us. Feel like we are your friend. And that to me tells me that like advertising is kind of leading that, you know, be real type attitude where by body jumping, you're learning like, okay, we're at work here, but we're still dealing with people every day.

Like we gotta reach these people and convince them that we're like them because at the end of the day, we are people. And I am wondering if you do. Yeah. Is that what you mean by the sort of body jumping is that, you know, you have to empathize with these people and understand where they are. And do you think more parts of organizations should sort of adopt that sort of mentality? I mean, yeah, I'm head nodding for sure on some of the categories who realize that you don't want to, if we're going to invade your life on a boring topic, like insurance, like, you know, you need it. You just do. Like, do I really need to explain ours versus theirs? And I think the most fascinating

part about being in the narrative business right now is that there's lots of places where you can tell that story and having the discipline on how much you share in one place that drives people to another and where the story could get picked up then. It's almost like, and I'm dating myself and it's like, remember what ET picks up the Reese's pieces and he just keeps following the trail? I think, I think really, really good advertising. And to be honest, Tyler, I don't see it the way you do. I think, I think we're polluted. I think a lot of the advertising I'm seeing is pollution right now. Like, I think there's a few categories. I agree with that. Right. Like a few categories are like getting it. And then most,

and we're almost overwhelmed by the amount of places where advertising can live. And unfortunately I'm not seeing, like I think Amazon's doing a really good job here, here, here's, here's the test. Okay. And again, remember guys, I come from the world of brand so like I Can't not do this but like I always say when you're watching a piece of brand and entertainment and

The first thing you think of is brand and entertainment. It's shitty brand and entertainment Right if you're just entertained and you escape for 30 seconds and you truly laugh like the Michael B. Jordan as Alexa, you know, for a minute there, I'm not thinking about Amazon's trying to sell me something. I'm like, that's funny. It's just funny. And it does bring me closer to the brand. I just think it's really hard to do that. I think coming up with ideas and then executing on those ideas. And the irony is, gosh, when we met, we're kind of full circle on this. The reason I feel like I can be real is I did the work myself on myself. And there's a lot of things I didn't like about myself from being in the service business

for 20 years. And it wasn't like the service business is terrible. Let's vilify advertising. It was, wow, I had surrendered myself maybe 1% at a time over 20 years, taking a call that I shouldn't take, bringing a safer idea into the room just in case, right? So we'd present three ideas, sort of two ideas. And then what happens when the client likes that idea? And then did I, did I fight hard enough? If I'm the expert, and there's truly trust between us, we should be able to have the tree trust fall game ago. No, this is the idea. And here's why I knew that I had to like, go back to school

on myself, and to kind of rip myself open and understand who I was and who do I want to be in my next life? And someone once said to me, it takes you 40 years to figure out who you are in the next 40 to be that person. I'm like fireworks as I'm writing Return on Courage at the age of 38, 39 years old. And I realized, oh, I'm not writing this book to position my company. I'm writing this book because number one, I need the book. I'm the one that needs the lesson. So by the time I had met you, I had sort of crossed the bridge of the 50 questions

I needed to ask myself. And I was at peace with the answers. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to just be me. Maybe I'm not gonna win everybody over, but I'm gonna be real and the right people and look at this relationship. Imagine the amount of people I've met that I don't keep in touch with. And that's okay too. Like go find your people and be with your people.

Well, we're gonna get into some of those folks that you have won over soon enough. I do wanna start with courage as the central idea of this chat, of course. It's all over your background right now do want to start with courage as the central idea of this chat. Of course, it's all over your background right now. Courage is Courage Bootcamp. It's your brand. Just quickly, can you sort of identify and define what you mean when we were talking about courage? And maybe also you can chat about some of the myths that you write about in the book to kind of how we're taught what courage means. Yeah, I would say the fastest path to us to an answer is over a thousand days, I had a chance

to like sit with what I now call the brave, the bullish and the brainiac. And of course, that's not what I called them when I went through it. I'm just fumbling through interviews with people that when they looked at the word courageous and they think about the choices that they made in their lives, they saw something in themselves that was unlocking that courage. Maybe a good place to start is for the listener, think about some place in your life right now where you're stuck, where you're scared, where you're spinning, or where you're safe, playing it safe. Because if you're stuck or you're spinning, you're probably stuck on something in the past.

I think if you're scared, that's the definition of being a human. Like that's something that you're working on right now or in the future. And if you're safe, you're probably just, you know, afraid to take that leap and push forward and anywhere, any place that one of those four S's lives, there's fear. And there's a famous proverb that fear and courage are kin. So this is kind of where I started my journey is like trying to understand why is it that most of us tiptoe right up to a courageous move at work or

in our personal lives and then 95% of us never leap. And Tyler, one of the things that I've held dear and dear to my heart since we last left off is like, Oh, I wonder if we could rebrand corporate America to courage America. Like, can we actually flip them to courage America? And the reality of it is it's not an idea for 100% of corporate America. I'd say 90, 95% of companies that look at courage are like, well, we don't need that. We just gotta get to the next quarterly review.

And so there you go. Like, we're really fighting for the 5%, right? If we know that 95% of companies are in preservation mode. Only 5% are really looking for liberation mode. If 95% of us are in freezer flight, 5% of us are in fight. So then you look at the dictionary definition of courage, which is the ability to do something that frightens you. And I think if you pulled most people, that

really isn't on their list of things they'd like to do, especially at work. And so again, I think if you're listening to a show like this, or you're on the mic, then of course, there's a curiosity to take on things that maybe scare most people. But again, this is why you and I have a really the relationship that we do have But a lot of people don't want to do terrifying things that work So how do you like and if the ability to do something that frightens you is the definition? How does that help you spot where you should be courageous and where you shouldn't I didn't see the utility in the definition? So after going on the journey definition. So after going on the journey, you know, this is like talking to astronauts and founder of method soap and

people at Harvard and people at Google, and clinical psychologists. We have a different definition of courage now. And it's not just like a definition. It's, it's our process for the way we go about helping companies be more brave. Yeah. There's three levers. There's knowledge plus faith plus action equals courage. And you need each lever for it to be a courageous act.

And sometimes it doesn't sit very well with the data people I'm about to say, but you're never going to have a hundred percent of the of the knowledge you need to make a call and if you truly think that's Like you can sit around and wait for a hundred percent. You're gonna get passed by a competitor you see or don't see so how often have you known the right move and And then felt it which is the faith part you know the right move and then felt it, which is the faith part. But then we never take action on those ideas. So the irony is two of three in any direction is something

else. Knowledge plus faith without action is paralysis. And faith in action without knowledge is a reckless move. And knowledge and action without faith. If, and when we talk about faith, we don't mean it in the religious sense. We mean it in the inner belief conviction sense, but how often have you known the right move? You got knowledge and you've got action and no faith. You're, you're probably numb on the inside and you're working on safe. You're working on status quo. So knowledge plus faith plus action equals courage. And another way to say that knowledge is the think faith is the feel action is to do think plus feel plus two, what are you going to think about it? What do you think about it? What

do you how does it make you feel? What are you going to do about it? That's courage. Courage America is a very strong candidate for the title of this episode so far. So thanks for that one. I wanna take a look at that 5% that you're talking about of companies. Also, I would argue the 95%. I think there's probably a similar thing going on where there's an underappreciation for values. So you spend a good amount of time talking about values

in your book and in your other writings. I know this is central to what you do as well is a focus on values. And I think that there's just, there's a mismatch here and this might be another generational thing where I think very few people are going into companies, you know, their first hires out of college and that sort of thing,

and looking at the company's sort of like explicit values. I think they're, especially young people, age and younger, maybe, you know, we're looking at companies on social media, in mainstream media, we're consuming their products, and we're getting an understanding of their values kind of as we receive them, you know, not as they're written or probably talked about internally, not as they're written on their, you know, about us page or whatever. I think there's a couple of things going on there. Values in general are taught at onboardings pretty passively in most of my experiences,

not something that's too deeply emphasized at any point in an onboarding, maybe in larger companies, it's more the case, but it just doesn't feel like there's ever really a strong emphasis is like taking time to really discuss the deeper values of what we're working with. And at the same time, it just feels like values are irrelevant because of the urgency and pace of business right now and how rapidly we're moving toward AI changes and how much sort of anxiety there is. It just feels like talking about those deeper values when we actually need to ensure revenue and ensure that we hit our, you know, our bottom lines for the coming quarters.

It just doesn't feel as relevant. So I'm curious what you think about that. How do we create values that are more flexible, maybe more adaptable? How do we do that without phoning it in or without creating values that just feel detached from the product or service and don't alienate that just feel detached from the product or service and don't alienate the folks who've experienced that product or service.

Funny enough, our team has, we're like near the end of a white paper on values. Oh, awesome. And we've looked at the Fortune 100. We've also looked at the Power Brands 100 or a future innovator, 100, just because we wanted to have a different look. And, and I think the only way to set this up is remember what I thought I learned in advertising and marketing was the importance of the importance of differentiation, right? Have we differentiated ourselves? Does the market truly understand like how we're unique to a competitive set?

Yeah. When we looked at the Fortune 100. OK, this was supposed to be the Fortune 100 year. Forty four percent of them had integrity as a value. Like the word integrity explicitly written in their. Yes. And to me, integrity doesn't surprise me. I mean, it's pretty sad that we would even need integrity as a value. Like what happened to us? I think that's the issue there.

Yeah, it's that we have to state that explicitly as a business. You have there's an onus on you to have integrity. I would argue. I mean, you should think that that should not be an issue, right? Or like, and then you can go from like diversity and it's like, everyone's using the same word. So they, so to your point, like what we've learned is that pretty good companies have gotten away with pretty good values, I roll values, right?

And so to your point, people like you are like, well, these, these don't, these don't seem to matter. That's a tricky thing, Tyler, right? And so to your point, people like you are like, Oh, these, these don't matter. These don't seem to matter. That's a tricky thing, Tyler, right? Because I'm not trying to put just our point of view into the world. If the world doesn't want right, they don't, they don't see the value and values, right? And how valuable are your values? Now I can tell you, there's plenty of words to go around. So when you see companies that are exceptional, and they have unique values that are creating behaviors and they're attracting the right type of employees, like what Patagonia has the number one value of environmentalism, you're not getting a job at Patagonia unless you want to save the world.

If you say you want to save the world, then you show up in a clunker of a car that's polluting the world, you're not getting the job. They're interviewing you as much as you're interviewing them. I think what's happening is we've got this clarity epidemic. Pull the Ryan Berman string, I'll say, you can't be courageous when you're cloudy and you can't see your North Star on a foggy night. And because so many companies have gotten away with foggy values, table stakes values, CYA values, I would, can we agree that Patagonia is doing just fine? All right. So they're using their filter of environmentalism as a filter for decision-making.

And I'm sure you've seen they've moved now beyond just jackets and parkas and clothing, and they're now into food and sustainability. Every decision they're making is through this filter of environmentalism. It couldn't be clearer. It's not 16 values where they've watered down every value. I think honest company also another one trying. And when you're called honest, it holds you to a higher standard. And what does this say about the competition by the way?

So, so I think what we've seen is that core values are not I rolls there, how the exceptional role. And if you have, I would say to those very same companies, if you're listening right now, you're like, values are values. Think about how they should be used to hire people. What really lights you up? Are you, are you really on the bus of the company? If you have a retention problem, to your point Tyler, you even mentioned if your company is driven by fear, which is what happens when you chase

the wrong type of money to hit a quarterly number versus a true rally cry in your why purpose of what you said the company like a Patagonia, SpaceX, another one. I love looking cup like a Patagonia SpaceX another one I love looking at SpaceX and Patagonia is two great examples because SpaceX their rally cry in there why as I like to call it as human life on another planet right so if you're passionate about that you're willing to give a weekend and maybe give up a brunch to go put human life on another planet meanwhile down here on earth on this planet is

Patagonia trying to save this planet right so whether you're trying to put life on another planet or you're trying to save this planet whatever you're passionate about it's very clear what the motives of those companies are and you should not sign up for that or try to get a job there if it's very clear what the motives of those companies are and you should not sign up for that Or try to get a job there if it's not like in here and so I think these are the the lessons that we should be learning by these are the companies that are trying to like Truly live their values and they're super clear. They don't have a clarity problem And I think most companies right now do and that's why some people are like, oh

Values, why would that be important? You're talking about real extreme examples right now saving the planet and leaving the planet, you know as values I you know, I think many companies would love to be able to say, you know We are an environmentally friendly and environmentally conscious company But their operations just have nothing to do with that, you know, because it's all digital or whatever. But my point here is that there is such a wide array of what you can identify or call values. And depending on the size and scope of your organization, depending on the industry, obviously, you're

going to have, you know, different keywords that probably should or should not be in there. One of the examples, again, from your newsletter is you met with the Houston Texans of the NFL, and they have their own little value system that seems to be, I think, mostly player-driven. You had some acronyms in there, one of which was CDS, cool, dope shit. And that was one of their values.

And it seemed kind of like an autonomous, like among the players, democratically developed decision where they're like, hey, this is something that we care about. We need to articulate that to our leadership and the other people in this organization, and they need to value that. So I'm thinking, can we expand

this sort of democratically driven value creation process to other organizations? You know, can standard organizations can standard businesses out in the world do that same thing where they ask their employees, you know, what are your values? Can we all work together on this and come to some sort of a value conclusion? That's not just you know, the buzzwords? Is that possible? Oh, yeah, I mean, I think the Texans are a great example of

this, right. And, you know, it's funny, for a guy that has a company called courageous, you would think that my favorite word would be courage. It's actually the word willingness. And I think when there's sincere willingness, and you're willing to be open minded, right, you're confident enough, by the way, to be willing. I love the double meaning of willing, right? Like, I'm willing to listen to the perspective of the team. And I think a leader's job sometimes

is to experiment and put something on the table and be like, I'm willing to see what comes back from this, let's create the space, but I'm also once we agree on something To have the will to see it through right cool dope shit like Wait a minute. I didn't see that on my values assessment. Okay, whatever works to help you get to your truth we're back to being real and Again, think about that as a filter for how the Houston Texans make decisions in marketing. If it's a CDS, hey, this is cool, dope shit. And I can tell you

Doug Vosick, who's running marketing and revenue is going to his team and saying lovingly, of course, please don't waste my time and show me something if you don't really think it's cool, dope shit, because we're not going to put it out in the in the marketplace. And I'll tell you, just to back that, you know, I've got my sock company called sock problems. If this is the first that people are hearing of this, you know, one of the things I wanted to do off of my book was create my own courage brand.

And so sock problems, the idea is every sock in the world tries to sock a different problem. If you want to sock racism, if you want to sock cancer, if you want to sock climate change and each sock has a different charity partner on the track and we give 25% back to those charities. So we want you to care, wear and share is the idea. I had a sit down with Eric Ryan, who's like absurd serial entrepreneur. He's done Method Soap, he's done Welly,

he's done Ollie, he's done all these amazing, like he's so good at finding commodities and just blowing them up and like bringing some magic to it. And he said to me, the one piece of advice I would give you on sock problems is he called it narcissism altruism. He's like, people want to do good, but it's got to be cool. And it was his way of saying, cool, dope shit. There's got to be CDS.

And we're kind of back to the generational. What's cool to you, Tyler, might be different than what was cool to my parents and like finding out like how to make sure we get the right stuff to our audiences. If we truly understood our audiences. And by the way, your staff is like, couldn't be a more important audience. They are literal walking advertisements unless they so disagree with your storytelling that then what they do is they bite their lip or they talk shit about you behind your back and you wonder why you have a retention problem.

Right? It was people like, I kind of don't, we kind of missed. And so that's the fight that I think we are, we're on at Courageous as well as how do we help companies, there's plenty of words out there. How do we help companies get the story right first on the inside where the culture believes? Yeah.

So then by the time we take it to the outside, it's perfectly aligned. Advertising, unfortunately, sometimes is like, let me tell a story to the outside world, because it won't work. But it's BS to the inside, and then you lose the team and you lose the staff. You have the four principles for courage, the four T principles, talent, team tenacity and training. And you lay out pretty clearly how to develop a team that's doing

exactly what you're describing here, develop your organization so that the folks internally, you know, feel those values and they work toward those goals enthusiastically. And back to my sort of original question here, where we're talking about being real, between the generations, there's a divide there, there's there's another divide, which is just how we work between Gen Z and the silent generation, things have radically changed how we think about our organizations and what we value about them. And their recruiting talent is really, really hard these days. I've had a number of HR folks on this show, and I've spoken to plenty

of them who are actively recruiting. And and you know, some people are saying talent shortage I think there's a talent overwhelm these days because I've talked to people who have platforms with literally billions of candidates listed on them. And it just feels like it's hard to find the right people and you have to do something extra as an organization which I think starts from being courageous. But I've spoken to Roberta Matchison whose whole thing is being a talent magnet as an individual, a magnetic leader

who people want to come work for. I've heard plenty about organizations just being magnetic because they're creating great products, they pay well, good benefits, whatever. But from your perspective as a storyteller, I'd love to hear how you might frame sort of creating that extra filter that more or less brings the right sort of talent to you

so that those four T's are a little bit easier to execute once you actually get them in there. Well, let's just first acknowledge that talent matters. I mean, it truly matters. And so as you think about ways to make sure you're qualifying in the right talent, what story are you telling the marketplace? I kind of think of it like online dating. And your website is your profile.

It's your dating profile. And so if somebody comes to your dating profile, are they like, I think I know, I think this is the one. Is this the one? Like this is until we get super clear on this part, right? And it's like, I think, is this the one? I think this is one for me. And then you get in and the honeymoon period happens and maybe it's like I think is this the one I think this is one for me and and

then you get in and the honeymoon period happens and maybe it's not the one and then you're like and like oh I just told my family all about this and now it's not working out and it's like demoralizing okay this this is why I think story is so important and why values are important and in slowing down and getting this part right will help you speed up down the line and yeah I do think it's it's as much a courage exercise as it is a clarity exercise and when we look under the hood of a lot of companies I think it starts with not only do they have clear values and a clear rally cry. You know, the bigger question, Tyler is, why is there so many, you know, you said billions

or millions of parked talent looking for new jobs? Like why are they are? Why are people unfulfilled right now? The other side of the coin of that is what a huge opportunity it is for companies if you can actually figure out a way to come up with something that's not BS, that's a true product that has like, people want this. And you look for insurance being what it is, there's peace of mind that can come with some insurance. No one's telling the story right now Right, but you can you can look at almost any topic

If I'm a bank right now Because I think I think a lot of people think like banks are in trouble. I Really think like people like banks are like What are they doing? But if I'm a bank? People so don't understand money. People are illiterate on understanding wealth. And if you became the bank that truly taught people how to like build wealth, and there's true utility there, I'm on that train. Every day I come to work, I'm going to help you better understand money because nobody taught me, nobody taught us.

Social media, according to social media, everybody has like five commas and how much they're making. So I don't know what's real and what isn't. We're back to being real. If you go to every category, the beauty of coming out of advertising was sort of cutting through the clutter and really honing in on being great at one thing. This is going to sound a little like promotional, but we say at Courageous that we want to be like a special forces unit that helps you figure out your special and bring to life your special. Okay, let's take courageous out of the equation. If I sat down with 10 leaders right now who are responsible for running companies, and

I sat down with each of their chief people officer, and I had each person write down just what makes this company special. I bet you I would get eight out of the 10 would be different answers by both people. And then maybe the other two like how unique are they? They are people, whichever our people are people make us special. And it's like, well, no, step into the shoes of the audience. Like, what do you how do we make sure that they know you're special? What makes you unique?

It makes you different. I think once you start to realize, like come into that that figure out like oh, that's what makes us special That's what makes us unique now. Let's do that. Let's say that everywhere for our employees for the outside world I think it puts you on a path to being clear to find the right people that want to come in and work for you so then what are the concrete things that we can do as Let's say so most of the listeners of this show are you know learning and development folks so internally they're probably going to be teaching everything from values to best practices to informal things and then compliance mandatory

trainings whatever and then just you know leadership folks managers that sort of thing and coaches and I'm curious what you think that leaders and maybe HR, L&D type people who might be encouraging that sort of alignment, what can they do specifically? Can we create stories and case studies around our successes that demonstrate our values in a very clear way? Can we just encourage collaboration so that we kind

of have that natural emotional and social alignment of what our goals are and kind of how we think about what makes us special? What do you think from a perspective of kind of encouraging that alignment within the organization? I mean, you said that's the word is alignment. And maybe it starts by, first of all, keep doing what you're doing. You know, I mean, thank you for doing what you're doing. If you're listening here. I think that there is a, you know, often it's, it's by starting by acknowledging the hard conversation that nobody wants

to have. If it's easier to like, forward this clip and say, listen at the 36 minute mark, you know, because there's been times I've said, gift, gift, return on courage, and at least they know that there's a conversation to be had. This is hard stuff. This stuff is hard stuff. And I think you know how when you unlock the potential or of the hard stuff, and a lot of people want to back away from it because it's hard, and we don't know where to get started, and we

don't exactly know how to do it, and we're a bit scared by it, but you kind of know that if you step forward into the hard stuff that everything changes, and we get to see the next best version of the organization. And you to me, I think that's how it starts is go after the hard stuff and not be afraid to admit that I don't know if I have the answer, but I know that we need to figure this out. And we get a little bit clearer. And then things get a little bit easier and then things get a little bit easier and people feel a little bit more supported and truly the intent of courageous is to help people brave the hard stuff. Right. That is the, that is the opportunity to serve and help them solve, but that we're back

to willingness or has to be a willingness on the other side to go, okay, you know what? We need to, we're not in alignment. This past week, I was fortunate to do a keynote with Procter and Gamble. And one of the places that we took the conversation was, are you a group or a team? And, you know, I've been able to sit with guys like Jeff Boss, who's a Navy SEAL, talks about buds. And he's like, look, the differences between a group in a team. A group might have a clear purpose, but a team has a shared purpose. A group communicates consistently. A team communicates candidly. And I think these little nuances matter, these little shifts matter.

And that alignment piece is the shared purpose piece. And so if we're not aligned, we're telling the world one thing, but on the inside we feel this way. It might just start by you having the courage to say, I think we need work here. If we don't address this, we're going to continue to have a retention problem. I'm pretty familiar with your major frameworks and ideas, just having read your material and worked with you, of course. If folks want a more robust solution to this question of alignment, I definitely recommend they check out the price framework. I'm not going to ask you about that right now just because I don't think we quite have time to go over it at this point, but I do at least want to get a couple things from you before

we finish. So first of all, experimental task forces, I think ETFs that principle comes from I believe E in price. I'd like it if you could explain those really quickly. It's one of my favorite more actionable ideas from that framework. And also if you could just go over the central courage system, that's a concept that I think is really critical to just understanding a lot of what it is that you teach. Yeah, well, what I will what I will say is that, keep in mind, again, I don't see him like I see myself as an observationist. So like, we did the work and like we went out and interviewed all these people over a period of time. And when we got to the definition of courage, then the next question we asked ourselves

was, well, which knowledge should we follow? How do you build faith both with internal teams, but also with consumers? And then where should you take action? Where shouldn't you take action? And so that's the price methodology. There's a price of being courageous in the spirit of time. It's right there in the book. You don't even need me to like walk you through it. Just follow the steps in the book. And I think it can help you get the mechanics of the business up and running.

I think the more interesting thing is, and the big aha for me was, it's nobody's fault. Like our, our standard operating system is called your central nervous system. It's just doing what it's supposed to do, which is calling out all the places that might be threatening. Right. And when we were cavemen and cavewomen, it was a really good system, right? As you're just trying to eat some berries and here comes the bear, the cortisol hits the right parts of the body and you stay alive. But now that same reaction is happening when you're stuck in traffic or a boss bites your head off.

And what I've learned is that your brain is like a reverse onion and it's compounding on top of it. And we really haven't created any strategies to help us evolve. So if you've touched the hot stove and you've tried to suppress it, it's still there. And you can understand then as you make future decisions like, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not saying anything to the boss anymore. Again, if you really break down your central nervous system at central at the core of you, your system, you're an operating system.

And right there in the middle is nervous. Like don't say that. Don't don't don't take that new job. Don't put your hat in the ring for that new title. And I think what we tried to do was to build help you develop what I call your central courage system to combat the realities of your central nervous system, which again, good system and calling out where fear might be, but it doesn't mean that we should be listening to it on every opportunity. Hey, thank you, central nervous system for trying to keep me safe. I object. Let's move forward. And so that price methodology is how we help you get your CCS,

your central courage system. A lot of the work we're doing with companies now is with teams. It's helping them build their central courage system so they can be brave, experiment, and to your point, build these ETFs, which stands for experimental task forces, where we're taking 5% of our budget. We're giving them psychological safe space. Hey, here's six months. Go figure out something we can move 20% of our budget to 50% of our budget to it's an experiment. It's not a failure. It's an experiment. We're going to learn something whether you're successful or not. And that's a sign of a good courageous leader is creating space for experiments.

I've never been a fake it till you make a guy. I have a t-shirt that I wear from stage that says mistake it till you make it. So maybe there's little mistakes that we make on the path to getting our ETFs out there and recommending new ideas. A few more contenders for the episode title there, mistake it till you make it,

and your brain is a reverse onion. I like that one a lot. So. All right, Ryan, thank you so much. Before I let you go, can you let our folks know where they can learn more about you? Anywhere you wanna send them, anything you wanna pitch?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, if you've made it this far, then trust the reality that you're curious about staying proactive with your career or your life. Easiest place to find me is at ryanberman.com. If you want it to be a little bit more brave, check out return on courage.com. You can grab the book there. If you're an Amazon person, grab the book there. If you can tolerate my voice, there's an audible too. Go for that. And then stay in touch.

Find me on LinkedIn. Let me know what you think. Let us know how we can help. If you feel stuck, scared, stale or safe, maybe start there, circle one of them and start to attack that one and start to shrink that fear down. Fear is not a bad thing.

Fear can be your friend. It can be a motivator. And you know, we believe courage sets you free. So have at it and we were with you. Here's to the 5%. Love that call to action. Circle one of the four and start there. Again, Ryan, thanks so much for joining me. It was a great conversation. I hope to talk to you again soon. And for everybody at home, thanks for joining us. We will catch you on the next episode. Cheers. You've been listening to L&D in Action,

a show from Get Abstract. Subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast player to make sure you never miss an episode. And don't forget to give us a rating, leave a comment and share the episodes you love. Help us keep delivering the conversations that turn learning into action. Until next time.