The Giant You Cannot Name Is the One That Defeats You

It was my third coaching session in a row with a vice president at a major financial services company. He had described, in careful detail, everything that was wrong with his organization. The culture, the strategy, the talent, the team dynamics.

What is the actual problem?

He could describe the symptoms with extraordinary precision. He could not name what was underneath them. And until he could name it, he could not address it. The giant was real, visible to everyone in the room, and completely undefeated, not because it was too powerful, but because no one had yet said its name out loud.

I have watched this pattern repeat across thirty-five years of executive coaching, board service, and organizational consulting. Leaders at every level who are gifted, experienced, well-resourced find themselves rendered ineffective. Not by the size of their challenges but by their inability to name them precisely.

In the story of David he named his giant before he faced him. Not Goliath, that was the name everyone already knew. David named what Goliath represented: a defiance of God's authority, a threat not just to military position but to the identity of an entire people. That precision of naming is what made his response possible. You cannot build a strategy around a vague threat. You can build one around a named one.

The giant you cannot name is the one that defeats you.

In organizations, unnamed giants are everywhere. The toxic leader whose behavior everyone tolerates because the numbers are good. The culture problem that shows up in every exit interview and disappears from every leadership agenda. The strategic assumption that stopped being true three years ago and no one has said so publicly.

I am building a community for leaders who want to change that. A space where the naming can happen, honestly, specifically, and with the company of others who are navigating the same valleys.

The first step is always the same. Name it.