#ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021
The theme for International Women’s Day this year is #ChooseToChallenge. There are some many things that could and must be challenged if we are to continue to equal up the playing field for women to succeed in leadership and business. Yet the word “challenge” itself can evoke a stomach-churning, fear-induced reaction as its often associated with feelings of discomfort, confrontation and conflict. How then, do we challenge in a way that gets our point across, has impact, but doesn’t result in either ours or other peoples noses being put out of joint?
Below I highlight 4 tips for making challenging both easy and effective:
1) Check in with yourself.
How are you feeling about yourself in relation to the other person you wish to challenge? Are you viewing them with respect, as an ok individual and are you viewing yourself in the same way? When we approach a conversation from a place where we view both party’s as ok, it makes for a more constructive open conversation. The alternatives to this are to a) consider our own views wrong or unworthy, causing us to shrink back, or b) think the others person is wrong and dismiss them, an aggressive reaction. Both of these latter two approaches result in us losing our power and influence, so focus on ensuring you feel ok in yourself and are viewing the other person as that way too.
2) Suspend judgement and embrace curiosity
Being curious really helps with the above. Judgement causes us to criticise and make others wrong. This can result in conflict and our challenge gets lost in the fray of sore feelings. We all have our internal critic which can so easily leak into external judgements, but practising curiosity really helps us transcend this. Curiosity opens up our conversations so they become more like an exploration, where assumptions and points of view can be more easily challenged. This stretches our thinking and supports learning and growth. Embracing a curious approach is particularly valuable when addressing unconscious bias The tricky thing about unconscious bias is that its unconscious. We aren’t aware of it. For the most part we aren’t intentionally expressing prejudices and may have no idea of the upset and discrimination they cause. Its the impact of biases that needs to be addressed. Finger-pointing and demonising those who are expressing them isnt’ going to create a constructive conversation for opening up people’s awareness. Being curious about someones way of expressing themselves or their thinking behind a statement can open them up to appreciating the impact and also pave the way for the feedback you want to give them.
3) Use open questions
Building on coming from` curiosity, open questions ( the ones that start with what, who, which how, where, when) are a great way to invite someone to stretch their thinking and consider the impact they are having. In reality, very little challenge needs to come from confrontation. Asking a good open question stretches someones thinking and gets them to challenge themselves and the impact they are having
As a coach open questions are a major part of my tool box and I will often quite innocently ask a question which causes my clients to sit back and really examine their thinking and feelings Never underestimate the power of a good question to as a means to constructively challenge.
4) Responsible Feedback
The most powerful feedback is the sort that communicates the impact someones behaviour is having. This means using responsible language that describes the impact they have had on you. Using “I” statements vs “you” is helpful here. For example “When I heard you say “this is a job for the boys” I felt immediately excluded from stepping forward and offering my expertise. How aware are you of how discriminating that statement is?” as opposed to “What you said was totally discriminatory, You’ve excluded me, how could you say that?!”
Use these 4 tips to guide you to challenge effectively and lets all keeping pushing back to ensure a fairer and more inclusive world for all.