Why Courage Is the True Bottleneck in Modern Business

Tips for developing the one resource that might matter more than talent, knowledge, or funding

Image: Created by the author with MidJourney AI

Imagine this: You’re a software developer at a massive enterprise. The kind with more departments than you can count. The kind that has meetings about meetings about meetings.

Your latest assignment sounds straightforward enough. Build a custom software solution to solve a data transfer problem between departments. Real important stuff…mission-critical, they say.

So you accept the challenge. Six gruelling weeks of gathering requirements. Four different departments. A dozen stakeholders, each with their own agenda, politics, and “essential” needs. Whiteboard sessions that leave your fingers stained with marker ink. Documents upon documents. Flow charts that stretch across multiple screens.

Finally, you’re pretty sure you understand the problem. The entire, convoluted, unnecessarily complex problem.

Presentation day arrives. The room fills with directors, managers, and team leads — each with their own special approval stamp and veto power. You’ve got the VP who needs to justify her budget, the director who’s allergic to anything not initiated by his team, and at least three managers whose entire…