The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion, 2nd Edition

Chapter 12Talk Is Walk: Language and Courage in Action

Peter Koestenbaum

“A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Ernest Hemingway

Much of our current thinking about our behavior is influenced by the insights of psychology. In its effort to be a legitimate healing science, psychology tends to be focused on illness, weakness, and what is not working in a person’s life. Management thinking and consulting has been heavily influenced by psychology and are filled with ideas of how to reinforce behavior that is valued and extinguish what is not. This has resulted in a body of organizational literature that is flooded with ways to control people and ultimately ways to control ourselves. Peter Koestenbaum brings a stunningly unique perspective to the world of leadership and the workplace. He has dedicated many years to retrieving philosophy from its academic isolation and applying it to the unyielding reality of the marketplace.

The marriage between philosophy and business is not easy, although when he speaks, we all sense that there is something profound in what he offers. It was from Peter that I first began to realize that questions of purpose and courage and destiny might apply to my own life, rather than remain as ideals that applied only to those who had achieved some form of greatness. What is particularly important about these ideas is that they offer a way of understanding ourselves that is based on an optimism about our capacity to discover our freedom, face our anxiety, ...