Provoke a response

My mum was a person who wasted zero energy on what people thought of her. Growing up, we cringed about it more often than was justified. Mostly, though, that approach to life taught me to just have a go at what I was interested in. Her go-to phrase was, “there’s no such word as can’t.” Strictly speaking, incorrect. But not a logic argument I was ever winning. She was relentless about it. My brother and I had no excuse and got very little airtime for something being too hard if we hadn’t at least had a few cracks at it (her other irritatingly insightful zinger was, “if you don’t ask, the answer’s no”). When we did have a go, got out of our comfort zones, and looked for where the limits were, she invariably backed us. 

So when I’m working with groups of leaders, I sometimes feel like my mum is sitting on my shoulder. We get to the bit where reality is biting. The real-world implications of getting out of the comfort zone are coming into view. And I start to hear the reasons why we can’t try something or it won’t work that way or we’ll never be allowed to do it. Nearly always, there’s little evidence and a lot of assumption to back this up. There’s no such word as can’t. 

Here's my version of the challenge: provoke a response. Go and try something. If you get blocked, now you know where the limit is, and exactly what parameters you’re working with. 

In my experience, here’s what more often happens: if you come with options for solving or making progress on a gnarly challenge, and have thought through how you experiment with it, people will usually want you to have a go. That’s where the breakthroughs come. 

So go ahead – provoke a response for that initiative you really want to sink your teeth into, that limit you want to test, or that comfort zone you want to break out of. Until then, there’s no such word as can’t. My mum’s got your back.