There are more available excuses now than ever before. In just two letters, “AI” is a simple, brand-new, all-purpose excuse for laying people off, averaging things down, closing things up and generally finding an easier/quicker path.
Courage, on the other hand, is the commitment to take risks and work hard to make something better than most people think it needs to be.
Example:
Open Source software (the real kind, not the window-dressing some big companies use) takes courage. To share your code, to invite others to participate, to have to cycle faster and hide less–it doesn’t always make traditional investors happy, and it can be a hassle. But time has shown us, again and again, it leads to resilience, to better performance and to a tighter connection between users and providers.
The conversation behind most of the excuses all around us is built on a simple choice: what’s the purpose of our work? Why are we showing up, putting in the cycles and making promises to the world? The short-term path to quick returns is usually excusable, and then we can get back to what we were doing, even if we’re hesitant to label it. “We don’t do this because it’s important, we do it because we’re getting paid right now to do it and because it’s easier.”
On the other hand, if your purpose is bigger, longer-term or more important than the easy path to quick profit, labeling it is important.
Tom Peters called it Excellence. It’s valuable because it’s scarce, and it’s scarce because there are plenty of available excuses. Excellence is an option, and excellence is a choice.
It’s much easier to find courage if you know why you’re looking for it.