How to Recognize the Challenge?

Change and challenge is the core of HENNGE

As many may know, our company name HENNGE is the combination of the term "henka"(Change in Japanese) and challenge. HENNGE people are people who keep trying to challenge for change. But, what is the challenge? According to Collins dictionary, challenge is defined as "something new and difficult which requires great effort and determination."

From this definition, challenging things should be something new which have never been done before and need to be difficult. Since it is difficult, it requires great effort and determination. I think the difficulty in the challenge comes from uncertainty. And, I feel determination means to have strong passion and willingness. Therefore, I believe the challenge is to do something new with strong passion. And, have a willingness to put a strong effort to overcome obstacles or issues along the way.

Three psychological states

Alasdair A. K. White who is famous for performance management studies stated there are three psychological states; comfort zone, optimal performance zone and danger zone. The comfort zone is the state where everything is familiar and there is no stress. The optimal performance zone is the state where people step out of their comfort zone and experience some stress. And, in this state, people can enhance their performance. If there is too much stress, the state becomes a danger zone. In this state, people will be under great stress and anxiety which becomes difficult to perform well.

I think the challenge is to step out of the comfort zone. Psychologically it is the action to enhance performance. However, if the person needs to be responsible for every failure, there will be enormous pressure and the state will become a danger zone in which performance will be lower. I believe it is psychologically correct to encourage failure. By saying and accepting failure, the company can avoid putting people into danger zones and keep them under optimal performance zone.

How to recognize the challenge?

Being out of a comfort zone means being in some stress and if the person is stepping out of their comfort zone to do something new, this means the person is challenging something. I think people can feel whether they are in some stress or not. And if the person thinks the stress is coming from something the person is trying to do for the first time, we can call the person is challenging.

To do the self-diagnosis, I will ask myself, am I under some pressure or am I uncomfortable? If the answer is no, it means I'm inside the comfort zone which is not a good state. If I feel some pressure or some uncomfortable feelings, then I ask myself, is it because I'm trying to do something new or different. If my answer is yes and if I have passion and will to proceed, I see myself as challenging something new. In stead, if the answer is no, I think there is some issue around me so that I will try to solve those issues.

In conclusion, to recognize whether I'm challenging or not, I will simply ask 2 questions. Am I under some pressure? Is that pressure coming from something which I have never tried before? And, this might sound contradictory but I will be happy being under pressure if I'm trying something new.