The Support Vs Challenge Matrix

Instead of listening and letting their clients talk it out, coaches sometimes wonder if it’s better to get right into action.

A powerful question has been making its way from the classroom to the workplace to some of our most intimate relationships: Do you want to be heard, hugged, or helped? Asking someone this question when they’re upset allows them to express their needs and fosters trust in the relationship.

Our coaching clients, also, can tell us what they need—if we listen deeply enough. Being heard and being “hugged,” in this sense, both involve a level of support. Being helped, on the other hand, involves challenging the client more directly.

I created this matrix to help identify different client situations and how a coach might determine how much to support versus challenge their client at any given time.

 

The ideal coaching scenario is high support and high challenge, where people think and act differently. Because when you think differently, you act differently; action follows thinking.

But our clients need different things at different times, and we must recognize when:

• Someone needs to vent (low challenge and low support)
• Someone needs to hear themselves talk through their situation (high support and low challenge)
• Someone’s very motivated to take the action they know they need (low support and high challenge)

We hear about venting as a negative thing sometimes, but there are benefits to it, and it’s sometimes what a client needs to get something off their chest and then move on.

Some coaching models only emphasize the high support and high challenge quadrant, but no coaching model is one size fits all. Remember that there are three possible quadrants and at least three other ways to support your client.

This matrix is a tool for meeting your clients where they are, and giving them what they need.