11 Sep Times Are Uncertain, but Courage Is a Skill You Can Learn
The customer research is detailed. Your team has an idea worth testing. Then someone asks the question that brings the meeting to a halt:
“Who else is doing this?”
Sometimes, that question helps you learn. Sometimes, it quietly kills the opportunity to become the company everyone else will study.
More than two decades ago, when we wrote The Power of Cult Branding, we wanted to understand why certain brands inspired extraordinary loyalty while others remained interchangeable.
We identified seven patterns, which we called The Seven Golden Rules of Cult Branding.
The second was the Golden Rule of Courage.
Cult Brand creators dare to be different. They act on their understanding of customers before success makes the decision look obvious.
You don’t build something extraordinary by waiting for certainty.
Jimmy Buffett is one of my favorite examples.
His fans found something in his music that went beyond a song they enjoyed. They found permission to loosen up, laugh, and imagine a life with a little more sunshine and a little less hurry.
They became Parrot Heads. They dressed for concerts, traveled together, and created rituals around a shared feeling.
The whole world didn’t need to understand Jimmy Buffett. His people did.
The lesson for leaders is easy to admire and difficult to practice: give the people who love you more of what makes you meaningful to them.
That requires choices. An idea your best customers love may leave other people indifferent. A distinctive personality may puzzle people outside the community. You have to decide whose response matters most.
Oprah illustrates another expression of courage: allowing people to see what matters to you.
Her curiosity, personal experiences, and willingness to explore difficult subjects helped make her relationship with viewers deeply personal. People came to her for more than entertainment. They wanted perspective, discovery, and connection.
Both examples point to a question every leader should consider:
What do your customers feel free to be, express, or become because your brand exists?
That question takes you somewhere a competitor comparison cannot.
It brings you closer to your Brand Lovers: the people who feel most strongly connected to your brand. Their frustrations, aspirations, and sense of belonging give you something worth acting on.
Of course, understanding them doesn’t guarantee that your next idea will work.
You can listen carefully, gather evidence, and still make the wrong decision. Courage includes accepting that possibility and designing a responsible way to learn.
This is where courage becomes something you can practice.
Start with an idea your team keeps postponing. Perhaps customers want a simpler experience, but delivering it would require changing a policy you approved. Perhaps your community wants a place to gather, but nobody can promise what the first event will generate.
Bring that idea into your next leadership meeting and work through three questions:
What have customers shown us?
Identify the actual behavior, repeated request, or unmet need behind the idea. Give your conviction a foundation.
What is the smallest meaningful commitment we can make?
Choose a test that delivers real value. Give someone ownership, a budget, and a date. Make the potential loss manageable.
What evidence would lead us to continue, change, or stop?
Agree before the results arrive. Revising an idea takes courage, too, especially when it was yours.
Each time you move through that process, you practice acting without a guarantee. Your team also learns that thoughtful initiative has your support.
Over time, that becomes part of your culture. People bring forward ideas sooner. Customer concerns become decisions. Beliefs become experiences customers can feel.
Return to that meeting.
“Who else is doing this?”
Consider following it with another question:
“What have our customers shown us that gives us a reason to try?”
You may still decide against the idea. But you will have judged it on something more useful than whether someone else went first.
What is one idea your customers have given you that you haven’t yet dared to test?