For  this issue of The Performance Report, we were fortunate enough to sit down with Bill Treasurer, author of Right Risk and (most recently), Courage Goes to Work (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008)

Bill's outlook has been shaped by his interesting personal history, which includes high diving.  Bill, can you tell our readers a bit about your background?

When I was a kid, I was afraid of heights.  I figured it out when I was 10. My dad took my brother and me to the top of the Empire State building.  I was debilitated with fear, but my brother and dad were enjoying the view. 

Fast forward a few years, to a time when I was horsing around with friends at the local pool. I ended up doing a back flip off of the diving board.  That started an awkward kid with little penchant for sports into the high school diving team.  With a patient coach who wouldn’t let me fail, I eventually made it to the high board. 

How did high diving continue to play out in your life?

This skill gave me a full scholarship to West Virginia University.  After graduating, a friend called and invited me to join the US High Diving Team. Just to clarify, the US High Diving Team wasn’t an Olympic team, it’s too dangerous–we were diving from heights that were the equivalent of a 10-story building. 

I accepted membership in the team, to do spring board diving, but not high diving.  Within a week, I experienced the "mere exposure" effect, much like I had with my high school coach. Mere exposure is a psychological term for being “merely exposed” to large doses of the fear that is holding you back. The more exposure you have to the fear, the more desensitized you become to it.

High diving serves as a great metaphor for courage.  How does that play out in other settings?

With each level we reach a comfort zone at some point.  That is the time to another place of discomfort, until we reach our comfort level there, and so on.  I call it modulating comfort.  I have a history of purposely putting myself into uncomfortable positions, until I grow comfortable.  

This whole process enabled me to experience my own courage.  In so doing, I found not only my own sport, but my strength.  This is what is behind my first book, Right Risk.  My second book, Courage Goes to Work, talks about the courage that is needed in the workplace, which is often a fearful environment.

It is the roll up your sleeves component of courage.  Look, I am the high diver who is afraid of heights.  So I ask people, what is your high dive?  Moving to another geographic area?  Becoming a manager for the first time? You tell me.  My life's work is to help others learn their own high dive, whatever that may be.

How is courage needed in the workplace?

Courage is the umbrella concept. I think it is the first virtue of business.  For example, you have to knock on doors over and over, or defy tradition with innovation.  If you want to be a leader, you need to render bold decisions that people don’t agree with. 

If you get the courage right at the outset, so many other things become effortless. 

Can you give me a real world example of how courage has gone to work in business?

Absolutely.  I once worked with an executive who had flat lined in his career.  He had been with the company for 20 years, he was valued, they liked him, but he had lost enthusiasm.  The company, in return was getting ambivalent about him.  I worked with him on ways he was playing it too safe. 

We talked about why he was playing it safe and he ended up being offered a new role in the business development end of the company.  His first inclination was that it wasn’t within his experience set, and didn't match his background, but through coaching and talking about courage, he ended up taking the new role. 

It has reinvigorated his career, opened up new ways to learn and be productive. He is adding more value to the company than he has in years.  I don’t think this is a reflection on me.  Rather, it shows that he reconnected with the courage he had within.

That is a great story to end to our interview on!  Bill Treasurer, thank you so much for your time. When Bill is not working on his books or consulting business, he is spending time with his family in Asheville, North Carolina.