When I started coaching about 15 years ago there were two choices, image-wise. I could go for the hippy-type approach – all beads and scarves and hair (as illustrated below so beautifully by Barbara Streisand in Meet the Fockers).
Or I could go for the tough, greying temples suited-and-booted approach (a la Nick from The Apprentice).
I realize I have something of the Streisand about me, but on the inside I’m more of a Nick-type – straight talking, business-orientated, a bit alpha.
So when clients ask if I’m going to be challenging, I answer without hesitation – yes.
Sometimes though clients aren’t sure whether I have been.
This, despite the fact that delegates felt incredibly uncomfortable during the session, spoke about feelings and opinions they would never normally share, made headway on topics that they’ve been stuck on for years and took brave actions that had previously been unthinkable before we started our work together.
Having spoken to other colleagues it appears that this is very common. Clients ask us to be challenging. They then move forward more in a day or two with us than they have been able to for years without us. But they still wonder whether they were challenged.
It got me wondering whether we have the same idea about what the term “challenge” actually means. What does “challenge” usually look like and sound like in the business environment and how different is that to what I mean by “challenge"?
I was speaking at a conference last week and one of the other speakers (Dr Barry Hymer) gave us a few definitions. According to wiktionary, a challenge can be “A difficult task, especially one that the person making the attempt finds more enjoyable because of that difficulty”.
However, it can also be “a confrontation or dare”.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives us other options.
A challenge can be “A task or situation that tests someone’s abilities”.
Alternatively, it can be “A call to prove or justify something”.
As a verb, to challenge can mean “to dispute the truth or validity of…” or “ to invite (someone) to engage in a contest”.
And there are more, of course. Clearly, it depends what you mean by challenge as to whether you think you’ve experienced it.
Disputing the truth or validity of something someone has said will feel very different to inviting someone to do a task that is enjoyable in part because of its difficulty.
Here's what concerns me - Perhaps clients think challenge needs to be a dispute or a dare? When they ask if I'm going to challenge and I say yes, they are expecting me to dispute, to dare, to confront, to contradict, to compete, to fight with them. And, of course, I don't typically do this. It might be what challenge looks like in their organisation. But it's not what I think of when I think "challenge".
Most of the companies we work with need to achieve something that is difficult to achieve and they need to do it at pace, together.
That in itself is “challenging” in that it “invites (someone) to do or say something that they think will be difficult or impossible” (one of the Google definitions).
Look at that definition again. The thing that needs to be done or said may or may not be difficult or impossible. But certainly the person who needs to do or say it THINKS it is difficult or impossible.
The only way to work out if it is actually difficult or impossible is to look at the way the person is THINKING about it. Thinking about it differently will show whether it is actually difficult or impossible. And even if it turns out to be difficult, thinking about it differently may show the person how it can be done or said despite the fact that it is difficult.
When I “challenge” I am asking you to THINK in a different way – to look at yourself, at others, at the situation differently. This is a challenge because you think that it will be difficult or impossible to do. And sometimes it is difficult. But it isn’t impossible.
The use of the word “challenge” has never been so popular (here's a graph!). But maybe it has never meant so many different things to so many different people.
My “challenge” to you (ha ha) is this – Answer honestly which definition suits your ultimate purpose. Are your people more productive, creative or enthusiastic when they are confronted or called on to prove themselves? Or are they more productive, creative and enthusiastic when they are invited to think differently and to do or say things that they think might be difficult or even impossible?
If you re-think that you might notice far more healthy, robust challenge going on in your organisation than you had noticed before.
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