From the Training:
Assess & Progress: Spotting & Stopping the School Shooter

I was standing in the front entrance of a school during an E-SAT vulnerability assessment, sketching out how the area needed to be renovated. The longer I worked on it, the more I realized how expensive the project was going to become.

Standing there, I started negotiating against myself. 

The district had already gone through several urgent improvements, and their budget was already stretched thin. I kept trying to redesign the recommendation, looking for a cheaper solution that would still provide good safety. 

I tried over and over. 

But every time, I came back to the same conclusion:
there was only one best way to do it. 

So I finished the drawing and handed the recommendation over to school leadership, fully expecting them to reject it because of the cost. 

Instead, they agreed with it immediately. 

What surprised me even more was that many of the recommendations had already been included in a long-term improvement project scheduled several years into the future. 

That experience reminded me of an important lesson. 

Always tell the truth.

If you’re in a position to give guidance, here are five simple ways to do it: 

Leadership requires the courage to make hard decisions as well as the courage to hear hard truths. And if you are the person providing guidance, your responsibility is to tell the truth and not to decide what they can handle.

Never soften the truth because you assume someone cannot afford it, will not approve it, or does not want to hear it. 

Unless you are the final decision-maker, you do not actually know what can be accomplished. You don't know what funding may become available, what priorities may change, or what plans may already exist behind the scenes. 

Leaders need the best data possible, even when it is uncomfortable. 

Bad data multiplies the chances of making bad decisions. 

Sometimes leaders have to make difficult decisions. Sometimes budgets are tight, and sometimes the best solution cannot happen immediately. 

That’s just how it goes. 

But there is a major difference between knowingly choosing a less effective option and choosing one because nobody told you the truth in the first place. 

People cannot work toward the best possible outcome if they don’t know what the best outcome actually is. That is why the best recommendation should always come first. 

Then you work backward from there and try to get as close to it as possible. 

Maybe you cannot do everything today.
Maybe it becomes a five-year plan instead of a five-month plan. 

But at least everyone clearly sees the target. 

Yes, those conversations can be uncomfortable and frustrating. But once we stop telling the truth about what is truly needed, we don’t help but hinder people’s chances to prevent violence. 

So for the sake of those you love and lead, always tell the truth.