Coming up on the Leadership Growth Podcast. Bravery is a living, breathing behavior within your organization because if it is, I'm not suggesting everybody all day is going around saying things to each other and creating chaos, but you want to ensure, and if I was the owner of an organization, I would want to ensure that if somebody said something to somebody that they thought was hard to say or would be hard for that person to hear and it impacted that person favorably, I'd be thrilled. That's what I want. I don't want people hiding things. I don't want them playing games. I don't want them avoiding somebody because they don't like working with them. Whatever it might be that we do today that adds expense to our organization because we're grinding our wheels and not making great progress. Those are just some of the things, Peter, that you could do to start looking for ways to grow bravery at your organization. It's not like flicking a switch. It takes time and stories and experiences, oftentimes from the top down, demonstrating ways to be brave at work. Hello and welcome to the Leadership Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Stewart, joined by my brother, Peter Stewart, for another episode as we talk about tips and tools to help elevate your leadership journey. Today we are honored to have quite a special guest, Ed Evarts. That's right, folks. Let me read his official bio. You ready? Ed Evarts is the president and founder of Excellius Leadership Development and the author of three books – that's right, folks – including his most recent, The Bravery Trick, Four Easy Ways to Say Hard Things. Ed is also the host of Be Brave at Work, a podcast focused on bravery in the workplace. Ed, welcome to the Leadership Growth Podcast. Thank you, Daniel and Peter. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for joining us, Ed. This is great. This is great to have some wonderful insight. This is our first interview with somebody else. Daniel and I have just been talking on episodes so in the words of my dad, this is a historic moment.[Laughter] Historic. Ed, thanks because sometimes it's a boring thing here. No, not really. But anyway, no, it's a pleasure. Glad you can be joining, especially as we can talk about such an interesting and important topic of bravery. Now you've devoted a lot of time and attention to this. So let me start off with a question to you. What is bravery to you? And why really has it been such an attractive thing? What's been so attractive for you that you've wanted to focus so much on this? Well, let me answer the second part of the question first, if I can, Daniel, which is bravery is something that has been with all of us throughout our whole lives. And oftentimes we look back at experiences in the workplace and regret how we behaved, how we didn't say something we should have said, how we didn't do something we should have done. And we look back and we wonder why and, you know, have this real deep feeling of regret. So this is something that's been with me throughout my career. And I have many examples personally of times where I was not as brave as I could have been for a number of reasons. And I was sitting across from a colleague at a Starbucks, of course, and he and I had worked together 20 years ago and he was starting a podcast production company and he asked what I wanted to talk about. And my instant answer was being brave at work. And so for me, the definition of bravery is really saying something that you find very hard to say or that you believe will be hard for the other person to hear. Right? So it's something that's very hard for you to figure out how to articulate and say to somebody or you think even if you say it beautifully, it'll be very hard for them to hear. And so this feeling of constraint comes to us because we find we don't have the bravery to say something that we think would be very, very helpful. Thanks for giving us that insight, Ed. And as you elaborated and really starting on that feeling of regret. And in many ways, it sounds like as we have the courage to make those brave statements, to say those brave things in those situations, in some ways it's trying to help avoid that future feeling of regret of, "Oh, I could have or I should have, or if I would have said it differently, then maybe this opportunity would have happened or this feedback could have been given better." And so it's guiding us so that we can really avoid those feelings of regret, which frankly, I don't think anybody enjoys. Well, nobody enjoys. And that's a key theme of the book, Peter, which is oftentimes if we don't say something to somebody that would help them and they find out about it later, one of the first things that's going to come to their mind is, "Why didn't you say something?" Right?"Gee, I could have avoided this for years if you had said something." And this is where this whole complexity around bravery and relationships and helpfulness come in. So Daniel Pink wrote a book, I think last year, two years ago, called The Power of Regret. And in that book, he suggests that regret is always going to be part of our lives, that none of us can avoid feeling regret from time to time, either professionally or personally, and that it's good because when you feel regret, you actually learn from what it was that you didn't do the way that you thought you should have done it and avoid it. Right? So you figure out how can I get better at this so I don't avoid it? So regret, I'm not suggesting in my book, is bad. I'm just suggesting that it's something we feel when we think about bravery, that we oftentimes will think back and say, "Wow, I really said something and I feel great about it." But more often than not, and something we all share as human beings, is a feeling of regret, not saying something that was hard to say or not saying something because I thought it would be hard for you to hear. Yeah. And isn't that interesting, what you were saying in terms of you want to tell somebody something and if you didn't, they might later on say, "Hey, don't you care about me? You should have told me." And yet, that might be the very reason why you didn't say it because you wanted to be nice. You didn't want to hurt their feelings. You didn't want to cause them momentary discomfort. So Ed, what have you found are some of the reasons why people avoid or put off being brave or having that kind of courage? The number of reasons are endless and it's very complex. I'll give you what I consider to be the top three, and these are not in order, but one is political, that I didn't want to say something because I need you to be my friend at work and I was afraid if I said something, it might have a negative impact on our relationship and so I just decided not to say anything. I could be completely wrong, but it's this feeling of I want to maintain whatever we have and being honest and candid with you about something might damage that. And so I don't demonstrate bravery by saying something that I should say. The second tends to be around the lines of relationships and so relationships in the workplace are super important and I think it's really only been in the last 10 years or so that really the significance of relationships has become more and more obvious to people. We're slowly moving from a hierarchical workplace, the classic IBM office where there were 50 people at a desk and the vice president would walk into the back office and close the door and they would all be working, working, working. Doesn't exist any longer. Right? Now it's relationships, who I know and how I know them. And I'm really concerned that if I say something it will have a negative impact on my career and on the relationships that are so important to me in the workplace. And the third reason is a little bit deeper, which is we have not been raised in any culture and in an environment, especially in the United States of America, where we have been taught to be candid and constructive with each other. There are no classes that teach us how to be brave. I mean, there are some here and there in colleges and you can sign up for a program, but we've been taught to respect others, to respect our elders, to do what your parents say, and that doesn't allow us room to be brave. So we have culturally been raised to not be brave with each other, even if it means I can help you. Right? If I know there's something I want to tell you that I believe could help you, I still avoid it for all of these complex reasons that have impacted me throughout my life. Those are great explanations, Ed. And as you say that, particularly the latter one, it caused me to actually think about a question I wanted to ask you, and maybe it's because of the cultural training I've been raised in, in this country. Because I think of being brave and being candid, of is there bravery by not saying something? Cab you basically take being brave too far, and when is it that really you're trying to be brave, but ultimately you're just being rude or obnoxious or you shouldn't have said it anyway? Well, most of the work that I have done has been around how to be brave. And I can tell you from personal experience as well as professional experience, it doesn't mean you always say what you're thinking, always with respect and professionalism. So that's another core aspect of the work, which is if I want to be brave with you, there are times when I do it, there are times when I don't do it. We need to ensure that we have a relationship. I can't just walk up to you and say, "Hey, we just met, can I tell you something?" Because I don't even know who you are. So it's very important on that front. So without having done the research, I will tell you, similar to risk, there are things that we need to do that are risky and there are things to do that we don't do because it would be risky to do it. So it kind of works both ways in respect to bravery as well. There are times where you need to be brave. There are times where you need to think about, is this the right place and way to be brave with this person? Maybe I do it later. Maybe I see if this is a pattern of behavior versus coming in once, whatever it might be. But I would assume, Peter, that there are a number of places and situations where being brave is just not appropriate at that time. So we're not giving a license for being brave all the time, regardless of the implications. There is an intentional calculation. Nobody has that license. Well, you're making me think of how many executives we've coached over the years that will say,"Hey, I'm just being honest. I'm being authentic. I'm being candid." Whatever kind of attribute is termed on this, and you can sit back and the person was not being respectful. They were blasting. They were just going straight at it. It was almost like a unilateral comment versus actually helping the other person in some ways. Ed, as you're hearing this, what guidance do you have to help people feel a sense of authenticity, that yes, they need to express, but how do they kind of couch their comments in an aspect of respect still while being brave? In the book, we talk about four behaviors that you want to practice. Nobody's ever going to be perfect at all of them, but you want to practice in order to increase the likelihood you will be brave. I'm not suggesting by any stretch of the imagination that you will now be brave always. But the fourth one has to do with something called flexibility, which means if I want to talk to you, Daniel, about something that I think you need to hear that you would regret me not saying years from now if I don't say it now, I need to be flexible that I don't have the answer. I'm not going to tell you, "Oh, here's what you should have done and you didn't." We need to talk a little bit about it to see what works best for you. There may be information or examples that have influenced and directed you in certain ways that led you to do what you do or how you do it that's required somebody to be brave with you. So that executive you're mentioning who just comes at it and just says, "Hey, I'm just being honest," isn't necessarily exhibiting some of the behaviors you need in order to be successful, which is, of course, helping people. Being candid and not helping you is not bravery. That's other things that probably have less favorable names, but it's not helping you. You need to be respectful. I need to respect who you are, why you're doing what you're doing, the reasons you're doing what you're doing. I want to be respectful for you and always professional. If somebody comes to you very professionally to speak to you about something, your likelihood of speaking to them is significantly greater than somebody who's disrespectful. This is not about belittling. This is not about patronizing. This is not about making you feel wrong. These are all the things that we put into our heads that avoid bravery. This is about helping you be more aware of something that will allow you to be increasingly successful in whatever you're doing, both personally and professionally, by the way. It's not just work-related, but personally as well. We are all avoiding something in our lives right now. I'm sure I could pick both of you and say, "Okay, what are you avoiding saying to somebody for a variety of reasons?" I think we all have those types of things that we need to figure out a way how to say respectfully and professionally so that it helps the person grow and evolve. I think there's an element, as I was listening to you share that, Ed, of it sounded like you were making this distinction that could be very helpful to our listeners as they're contemplating situations of being brave. One is it sounds like when you're trying to be brave in terms of sharing an observation or sharing some feedback as opposed to brave in suggesting a solution. That's maybe where the arrogance or the "Yep, I know exactly what you should be doing" tone, which we may want to avoid, but it's really more that former of, "Here's an observation I'm noticing and the impact it might be having on others," and then allowing that solution maybe to be discussed together as opposed to, "Here's what you should do to fix it, you idiot," type of thing. You're reminding me of a model that my wife and I created in respect to our two daughters. This doesn't necessarily have to do with bravery, but our daughters would call us and tell us all about an issue that they're dealing with and we would jump right to solution. They would be like, "You know what? I'm not looking for what to do. I just wanted to share it with you." I said, "You know what? Anytime our daughters call, we need to ask them, 'Are you looking for feedback or are you looking to listen?'" Sometimes it's, "I just need you to listen." It's similar to what you're saying, Peter, which is, "Just because I want to say something to you that I believe would be helpful doesn't mean I have the answer. It doesn't mean I'm going to come in and tell you, 'And oh, by the way, this is what you should do about it.'" I might have some ideas and I should come prepared with ideas, but again, this is why the fourth step of the model is flexibility, which is not putting pressure on yourself that you also have to have the answer. This is a lot like coaching. I do coaching. I think you both do coaching to some degree. I'm not going to tell you the answer. I might have an idea of what the answer might be and maybe I've been down this road so many times I have a good idea what the answer should be, but I want to first see if you can get there. For someone to come up with their own solution that's close to yours and take action, they're going to own way more than having no idea and not giving any mental capital to it and having someone else give them the answer. Even though they might do it, they're not going to be as invested in it because they didn't come up on it on their own. Helping people expand their thinking and focus on what some options might be, to me, is a huge win. You're making me think. A client several years ago, he was an executive leader with a large financial institution. He's one of the most coachable executives that I've worked with. He was so willing to listen, whether it was good, bad, ugly, whatever, from any source and take it and genuinely look at it and then apply it and consider it. And so Ed, as you're hearing this example, and I'm sure you have other examples that is coming to your mind, how do we receive bravery well? Because we've been talking thus far in terms of how to give it and the importance about it and why it might prevent it. But on the other side of it, if we're brave to somebody, that means somebody has just been braved to. How do you receive bravery well in your experience, Ed? In the book I've written that will be coming out May 14th of this year, we talk a little bit about what to do if someone is being brave with you. Daniel, you've already touched on some of them. First of all, it has to be somebody that you have a relationship with so that the conversation is not adversarial. Now, that's not always going to be the case. Sometimes you're going to need to say, "Hey, Daniel, I know we don't have a great relationship and ever since I started, we seem to have been at odds, but I need to share something with you that I think would be helpful." It doesn't preclude you from being helpful, but you need to recognize the arena that you're kind of operating in. In order to be a receiver of that feedback, you've already touched on a couple of them. One, you have to be a great listener. You have to listen to what the person is saying. You have to understand what the person is saying. Anytime somebody is brave with us, there's kind of an emotional wall that goes up. It's like defensiveness, "Oh, no, you're wrong," or "We're going to debate this and argue this." I think Stephen Covey might have said, "More often we listen to respond than listen to understand, and we really need to focus on understanding." Second, we need to focus on curiosity, which is, "Well, help me understand when you're seeing this. Why do you think this is a negative and a big impact to me? Why should I even listen to you? Why is this so relevant to me as a listener?" And then the third thing, in my perfect world, is somebody then focusing on next steps."Okay, so I hear what you're saying. I don't know if I agree with what you're saying or not, but what are you saying it should look like? What is it that I could have done that would not have led you to be here today? Because that's what I need to know. I can beat you up as much as I want on why you're not doing something that you should be doing, but I'm still not talking at that point about what it should look like." The number one thing you need to leave any of these conversations with is, "Well, what does the better or improved or more evolved behavior look like?" You've got to ensure that that's included in the conversation, or else it would have been great to talk with somebody, but you really didn't get anywhere in respect to why you went to see them in the first place. Yeah. And I'll just piggyback on that. The focus on curiosity, I love it. Years ago, somebody asked me, "Well, do you know the opposite of curiosity?" And I sat there for a moment, and they challenged me, which I appreciated, and it is judgment. Once you then slip into the judging mode, judging of the person or the situation, right or wrong, you moralize it, you put good and bad on it, something, you quickly shift away from the curious, which is, "Oh, what can I learn? Well, that's interesting," at least from a neutral perspective, just kind of appreciate. And it's that key decision that so often is like, "Are we in judgment mode or curiosity mode?" And I don't know about you, both of you and our listeners, as you're going from Zoom call or Teams call every half hour, every hour, it's easy to remain judgment, task-focused, get-stuff-done mode, versus like, "No, no, no, how do I shift, get into more of a coaching mindset, getting more of a curiosity mindset?" Whatever word you want to frame up, but it's that reminder, which is so powerful. Well, there's a great clip on Instagram these days from Ted Lasso, where he's playing darts with his arch enemy. And as he's playing darts, he is talking about the importance of being more curious, because if you had been more curious, you might have had a better insight into whether I am a good dart player or not, which, of course, he is a phenomenal dart player, but his arch enemy had no idea because he was all focused on the task and winning and didn't care at all about Ted, but all himself. So I completely agree. When I work with leaders, things like listening, curiosity, treating people with dignity and respect are all key behaviors that leaders have to have in order to be successful. Leadership is very complicated, multiple things on multiple days and multiple times, but listening, curiosity, dignity are things that have to be there always. So helpful to be hearing about these perspectives and just to pull on that thought of curiosity a little longer. I remember an article I read of an interview with Brian Grazer several years ago, executive producer of so many hit movies, Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, obviously an individual very successful in his profession. And the interviewer asked him to what does he attribute his success. And he paused and thought for a minute. He said, "You know, I think it really comes down to the fact that I'm just curious about people. I love hearing their stories. I want to hear where they're coming from." That one. So that was the one attribute that he really kind of hung his success on. So I think we can all learn from that. So as we dive into thinking a little more about bravery in the workplace, Ed, how can we, recognizing now the benefits of bravery, how can we inject that a little bit more in the workplace? So it's always hard in a workplace to create a culture and an environment that embraces certain behaviors. So first you want to probably identify, you know, is bravery something that exists within the organization and exists in a tangible way? For us and potentially for many of our listeners, we've heard of something called psychological safety over the last five to eight years and the importance of psychological safety. I'm a huge psychological safety fan. That requires bravery to speak up and not feel judged and belittled. So you want to get a sense of whether or not the organization supports it or not. Two, you certainly want to start small. That whole thing about act locally, think globally. So act locally and respect it, demonstrating bravery on your own, because when it works, people will want to emulate it. And they'll say, "Wow, Ed said something to me that was hard for me to hear, but it really helped me. I think I could speak to Daniel about this and see if it can help him as well." So you want to first kind of get a sense to the degree that it exists within your company. Second, emulate it. And then again, in the book, we talk about a number of things that you can do in respect to training, reward systems, bonuses, all sorts of things that you can do to ensure bravery is a living, breathing behavior within your organization. Because if it is, I'm not suggesting everybody all day is going around saying things to each other and creating chaos, but you want to ensure, and if I was the owner of an organization, I would want to ensure that if somebody said something to somebody that they thought was hard to say or would be hard for that person to hear, and it impacted that person favorably, I'd be thrilled. That's what I want. I don't want people hiding things. I don't want them playing games. I don't want them avoiding somebody because they don't like working with them. Whatever it might be that we do today, that adds expense to our organization, right? Because we're grinding our wheels and not making great progress. Those are just some of the things, Peter, that you could do to start looking for ways to grow bravery in your organization. It's not like flicking a switch. It takes time and stories and experiences, oftentimes from the top down, demonstrating ways to be brave at work. And as we take that from an organizational idea, let's talk for a moment in terms of what that looks like at the team level. Because oftentimes, we do a lot of, as you do as well, Ed, we all work with teams and try to help them become more cohesive, try to help them be able to communicate more transparently and more candidly. And I'll often say, if the real conversation is happening outside of the team meeting, you don't have a team. We want to have the real conversation happening within the team itself. And essentially, that's enabling those brave behaviors. And so, if somebody is on a team that maybe has a level of dysfunction, maybe it has a pattern of not being as candid, what are the types of approaches or techniques that somebody could do to be able to start? What can… Because, you know, that's sticking your neck out. And that can then cause some potential challenge. As you think of a team, though, any other comments within that team environment of starting that bravery conversation, whether it's received well or not, at least short term? What are your thoughts on that, Ed? Well, you're right. I have worked with teams like that, as I'm sure the two of you have. And I will just tell you personally, from the work that I do, I typically start with the team leader. So, you know, most teams have a team leader. It usually is the most senior person in the room. It may not always be, but start with the team leader. I have to investigate whether or not bravery, amongst other things. So I don't know that I would always start with bravery. And I don't know that I would only talk about bravery. To me, it's all about team behavior and getting a better sense of how the team has agreed to behave. So in psychological safety and other works that have been produced, you know, coming up with a team behavior agreement is super critical, right? Because to your point, even if I have something I want to say, and it's brilliant, you know, I might not say it because I think it's going to be like a stone in the water, and it's not going to make me look good, and it's going to get us distracted. So it's not part of our team behavior to speak up and say these things. So I'm just not going to do it. It's so much easier to not do something than it is to do something, right? So it's easy to not say something than say something and not have to deal with everything that comes with it. So to me, Daniel, just to answer your question briefly, I would start with the team owner, the team manager, the team lead, work with them to identify expectations, meet with each of the team members individually, and then focus with the team to come up with what I call a roadmap, which are agreed upon behaviors. They almost typically come up with a very similar roadmap team to team to team, even though they're from different companies, on things that they're looking for and expecting. And almost always one of them is the ability to say something at the team meeting that is helpful and respectful, but may not be popular or the way everyone's leaning, right? Without feeling belittled or judged. Again, a key component of psychological safety. Yeah, great points. Thank you. That's awesome. I love how you're just expanding our thoughts as we're thinking about bravery in the workplace, as we thought about it at the individual conversation level. So think about it in the team level, we think about it at the organization level. So I want to look at relationships a little bit here, as we've touched on a few times already in this conversation. As a team member, let's say there's something that I want to be able to say to my team leader, to my supervisor, but I'm fearful of saying it because of that power differential. What recommendation, what advice would you give to me in that situation as I'm striving to be brave, but a part of me is scared to death? Which is very common, by the way. We even see this publicly and politically, right? People doing stuff that others don't know why they're doing it, because it seems like they're just afraid to say something. The first thing I would ask that client is on a scale of one to six, how is your relationship with your boss? And to me, if it's a four or higher, you're in a position where you could probably say something that might be hard for that person to hear, again, one of the definitions of bravery in a way that might help them. If it's a three or lower, I would suggest that they first need to work on having a good relationship. Your likelihood of being successful is significantly increased if we have a good relationship. It's just that simple. If we don't have a good relationship, I might not even be listening, right? I'm shaking my head, "Yep, yep," and in my head I'm going, "How much longer is he going to be in my office? I've got other things to do today," and then I leave and I move on and I didn't even hear anything that you had to say. In the book and in the work that we do, ensuring that you have a strong relationship with others is super critical. Maybe a whole other topic or a whole other book might be around the importance of good relationships in the workplace. I'm not talking about being someone everyone likes. I'm not talking about being the most favorite person that anyone ever works with, but having good relationships where we help each other, we're candid with each other, all to help your career and the impact of the work that you're doing and your organization is super, super helpful. Yeah, fantastic. Okay, as we wrap up here, are you ready? This is lightning round. I'll ask one question and then you can answer it, and then Peter will ask another, then we'll wrap up. So here we go. Here's my question. What is the main reason why we should be brave at work? The main reason you should be brave at work is for emotional development, right? This isn't just about helping other people, but it's also helping you be a better leader. That senior executive you talked about a while ago would be a much better senior leader if they were brave with people in ways that were respectful and helpful. It helps their career. It helps their personal and professional development. It helps everyone. And so that's, to me, one of the key reasons on why to be brave at work. That's great. So helpful to have that. Okay, lightning question for me is, what is the one tip you would give somebody who might be a little more conflict-averse in their quest to be brave? So not only have we been raised in a culture that doesn't train bravery, we have also been raised in a culture that teaches us how to be conflict-averse, right? So conflict avoidance is a common behavior with the vast majority of folks that I work with. So when I think about conflict, it's a very heavy word, right? When we even hear that word, our body energy feels heavy in respect to it. And so most of the time when people think about a conversation that they think might be conflict-existent, they come up with the reasons not to say it, right? Their head just bubbles with, "Well, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it." So my one tip to somebody is spend time thinking about why you should say something, right? I mean, there are always going to be reasons why it's challenging, but what are the reasons that it will be good for you to say something? What are the benefits of you saying something to somebody helpfully and respectfully and professionally that will help them bring greater awareness around something they're doing that may not be popular or maybe having a negative impact? So focus on the reasons why to do it, and your likelihood of doing it is going to be greater. Yeah, well summed up. Okay, as we're wrapping up, Ed, May 14th. What's happening on May 14th, and how can we get a copy of the book? Well a lot's happening on May 14th. So The Bravery Trick is being published on May 14th. It'll be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can get it either of those sites, or you can go to my website, excellius.com. And just to put in a small plug, we'll also be hosting our in-person book launch at a beautiful hotel in Somerville, Massachusetts, and having book copies available for signature as well as hearing from a couple of folks about bravery in the workplace. That's awesome. Bravery Trick. Check it out, everybody. Ed, thank you so much for being part of Leadership Growth Podcast today. It's been a pleasure. Peter, Daniel, thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Ed. Absolutely. Okay, folks, everyone of the listeners, please like and subscribe in the future to the Leadership Growth Podcast, and we look forward to having you on another episode. Take care, everyone. Good luck on your leadership journey. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague, or better yet, leave a review to help other listeners find our show. And remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. 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