In business, over the years, I have seen many common words and phrases become adapted to management for specific or altogether new meanings. Challenge and problem are two of them.

Anxious to rouse up their teams to motivation, leaders have brought their creative language, picked up from business academia, to rallies and conferences. Accountable is another word that turned out, in my opinion, to be more of a cop out for managers than an inspiration for staff members.

Remembering well in the late eighties, early nineties when I was working in a top global company, I have seen more times than I want to think about, situations when managers have used this new word application to get out of their responsibility to their own team. “You’re accountable for your actions now, therefore I’m not responsible for your poor performance”. Of course, if the performance is grand, they immediately take the credit!

Well, another twist of common sense has crept up in challenge vs problem. In about the same era, leaders introduced to the workforce the replacement of problem for challenge. They didn’t want business folks to call a problem a “problem” anymore, they wanted them — actually insisted they refer to it as a “challenge”. If you did call it what it really was, you were swiftly corrected.

However, is an expedition to climb Mount Everest a problem or a challenge? Is entering a yacht race a problem or a challenge? Is taking on a political opponent a problem or a challenge? Is a computer breakdown a problem or a challenge? Is the loss of fifty percent sales a problem or a challenge? Is a leader who will bring down the house a problem or a challenge?

The first three questions are clearly not problems. They are definite challenges that one wants to dare. The other three questions are problems that have manifested themselves and that will require a solution, a process of resolve. That solution process is what will (or should) become a challenge to take on.

Why don’t we call it what it is? And why is this important? Again, as I always say, because focus in business is important. A problem is a problem. A challenge is a challenge. They represent two different feats, they require two different approaches.

Dictionaries define problem as: a question or a difficulty needing a solution. A question proposed for solution, decision, or determination; a subject given for examination or proof; any question involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty. Etc.

Challenge is defined as: a call to fight, a call to account, a dispute, a claim. An invitation or summons, verbal or written, to decide a controversy. An invitation to a contest of any kind; as, a challenge to a public debate. Etc.

A challenge can be a problem in itself sometimes. A problem cannot be a challenge - the action to solve that problem is what becomes the challenge.

So next time a staff member comes to us saying “We have a problem” or “There’s a problem in the graphics department”, let’s not “correct” them but let’s hear them out and work with them to solve a real problem. /dmh

By Dr. Diane Hoffmann
Diane M. Hoffmann is president of Hoffmann-Rondeau Communications Inc. which offers business resources and services to ONline and OFFline small business at http://www.business-resources-hrc.com . She is the author of numerous seminars, articles and books including “Contextual Communication, Organization and Training. (Content copyright Diane M. Hoffmann. You may reprint this article without changes and including author’s name and resource box).

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