• ‘Ask coaching questions’ they say. 

• ‘Let them solve their own challenges’ they say. 

• ‘Stop fixing things for your people’ they say. 

And then your team member comes up with an unfixable challenge. A desired solution that, realistically, won’t happen. 

This might be something like: 

• We need more resources to get it done 

• We need more time on this project 

• We need more people to get it over the line 

• We need a bigger budget to do it properly! 

What then? 

What do you do when you try to encourage your people to solve their own challenges, but their solutions aren’t realistic, and you know they won’t or can’t happen. 

Case in point: 

There it is… The unsolvable challenge. 

When coaching a team member who’s only solution to a problem is a fix that you know won’t or can’t happen, we have to change the focus of the solution. 

Action or Reaction (Process or Perception) 

There are ultimately two responses to a challenge – change how you do it, or change how you view it. If something isn’t working you can try doing something different, or, you can keep doing the same thing, and change your attitude toward it. 

Action – If you can get more resources (more people, more budget, more time), then do that. If you can do things differently, then do that.  

But if you can’t change your action, you’re challenged to change your reaction. Sometimes a change in perception will do the trick. 

Reaction – If the deadline is the deadline, the budget is the budget, and the resources are the resources, then changing your action is not an option. In this case the coaching needs to shift to the reaction. 

• Maybe it’s about who they’re being in the moment – resilient, creative, innovative. 

• Maybe it’s about how much personal pressure they put on themselves – sometimes, ‘done’ is better than ‘perfect’. 

• Maybe it’s about making peace with the impending result, and knowing they did their best -  you win some, you lose some. 

To shift the focus of reactions to a new perception, try questions like: 

• “Knowing we can’t change the time frames, what kind of leader do you want to be in this moment? What do you want people to say about how you handled this challenge?” 

• “Let’s say we can’t get any more FTE on this project, what do you need to let go of, to feel less stressed right now?” 

• “Given that there is a budget freeze right now, and getting more funding is out of the question, how do you need to think about this project to know you are doing the best you can?” 

The more you coach your team, the more they will bring unfixable challenges, and the better you will become as a coach. 

With the Action/Reaction strategy in your toolkit, there will never be an uncoachable challenge, even if there is an unfixable problem.