Brandon Kelly introduced me to the Invitation vs. Challenge model while leading me through the formative book Building a Discipleship Culture. It is a classic two-axis grid, with invitation rising vertically and challenge growing horizontally. Ideally, a leader will wield both powers to help people move forward.
The biblical case for this model is found in Matthew 16, where in one paragraph, Jesus praises the faith of Peter and offers him the keys to the kingdom (invitation), and then in the next paragraph, Jesus rebukes Peter’s lack of faith, comparing his response to that of the devil. The argument is that neither invitation nor challenge on its own helps create disciples—or, in other words, people who move toward their God-given life.
As I considered how different my many coaching clients are, this model helped me understand that they have differing needs and that I may need to show up differently for each one. Sometimes, my clients need more invitation, and sometimes, they need more challenge. My experience says that the best coaches are the ones who are willing to lean more toward challenge than invitation.
Working out the grid, four quadrants describe the current leadership style of the discipler—or, in my case, the coach. If both invitation and challenge are low, the style is boring. If the invitation is high but the challenge is low, the style is cozy. If the challenge is high and the invitation is low, the style is stressful. If an equal portion of both invitation and challenge are present, the style is productive.
There is no doubt that I would like all of my coaching sessions to be productive. This is a fair assumption. The model is designed to cause the coach to adjust their style to help the current client move into a productive mode. Let’s apply this model to some of my current clients and see what we can learn. I’ve changed the names and details to protect my clients’ anonymity.
Client: David — A Senior Adult with a Final Leadership Challenge
While I enjoy coaching David, I often get bored in the sessions. My favorite part of coaching is helping the client think in ways they have never considered before, to imagine new actions and new outcomes. David does not think this way. He is a man with lists embedded in institutional memory. My style automatically defaults to low invitation and low challenge.
All coaches have a preferred style. Mine is invitational. I like to make people comfortable. I am a natural encourager. I feel like a winner when my client fully trusts me and can relax. David is one of the few clients who I meet in person. I know his favorite drink, and I always have a cold bottle waiting for him when he arrives. He is an avid reader of fiction, and I often spend several minutes letting him fill me in on the latest and greatest reads.
On the occasions when David fully relaxes, he exposes a lack of confidence and a fear that he will drop the ball in this last critical leadership role. The problem is not a lack of understanding of what he needs to do. It is a simple matter of confidence—or lack thereof. There are times when challenge is needed to build confidence, such as when a client is unwilling to take an action for fear of failure. David is not fearful; he is just unsure, as we all are to some extent.
David thrives on my invitation. He is buoyed by my admiration for his private and professional life. He enters his leadership with more confidence because he knows that the one person who knows his vulnerable side believes he is capable of strong leadership. From time to time, I bring challenge, which always brings frustration with it, but for the most part, I offer invitation in my coaching sessions with David. He just signed a one-year contract extension.
Client: Mindy — A Brilliant Writer with a Strong Desire for Justice
In our first session, Mindy told me that she does not think linearly. She prefers to set goals and then expand into them. She has a fascinating history of overcoming addiction and is extremely insightful about the subject. However, she has become bored with the subject and now spends most of her waking hours wondering how to stop the slave trade. I find myself secretly wishing she’d spend more time on the former.
There is an assessment called the Big Five, which measures—you guessed it—five personality characteristics. One of those is openness. I scored quite high. Ideas do not scare me. I find it delightful to talk about things that, for me, are undiscovered. Mindy, though, takes me to my limit. Many coaches might not be able to listen deeply enough to really hear Mindy’s core desires. Even with my high level of openness, I find it sometimes hard to hear past her strong ideology.
While Mindy needs some invitation to provide confidence, she is more in need of healthy challenge so that her brilliance can supersede her ideology. Every session, I feel compelled to challenge her thinking—not to break it, but to break through it. I try to be careful not to challenge her ideology but to challenge her conclusions. Did I mention she is brilliant? She has the ability to be a thought leader in this area of her passion.
There is a point in every session where I worry she may label me an oppressor, but I know that if I do not challenge her thinking, then I am not providing much value in my coaching. To my surprise, at least so far, her thinking becomes more clear, and she expresses much gratitude for my intervention. The style feels stressful at times but always returns to cozy at the end.
Client: Tina — A Lost and Broken Follower of Jesus
Tina hired me because she was stuck. She did not see a clear path forward and even felt the ever-present spirit of Jesus not being so present. Before we had our first session, Tina suffered a significant loss, and when I say significant, I mean the kind of loss that can shake us to our very core. I was not sure what this loss would mean for our coaching relationship. We found that Jesus had set up our relationship for such a time as this.
When I worked on things like a personal mission statement, I came up with this: I am a stabilizing presence in an ever-changing landscape. These two elements are essential for me to know where I can most help. First, my client’s landscape needs to be unsteady. Second, my presence immediately stabilizes the individual or organization. This allows me to discern which clients I can most help and creates a time clock, knowing that as the client’s landscape stabilizes, I will be less and less needed.
Tina needed a heavy dose of cozy. Her loss not only damaged her heart but transitioned her into a completely foreign environment. I have found that one of the most healing actions a person can take is to listen, and I listen intently to Tina, even though there are often times of severe silence. The most profound statements typically come out of profound pain.
As Tina heals, I dabble in some challenge. To this point, she has not taken any steps toward challenge, but she is at least interested in considering new possibilities. I am mostly honored and grateful that Jesus created this relationship that provides much-needed support for Tina’s difficult journey.
Client: Harry — Changing Careers to Become a Professional Coach
It may come as no surprise that some people want me to coach them to become professional coaches. One of the keys to my own success has been hiring coaches to help me navigate the practical and emotional leaps required to thrive in the Wild West of professional coaching. Harry believed I could help, and I believed he was right.
I always feel productive when I’m coaching Harry. We have a good rapport, having found a shared reverence for a once-great 1980s sports team. Our strong relationship allows me to bring the fullest level of challenge and never have it feel stressful. Every session, Harry takes steps that feel strong and deep, which should allow him to become a stable, profitable, professional coach.
While coaches need to take great care to ensure their clients are the experts of their situation, one of my most significant contributions to Harry is my professional coaching framework. It allows Harry to assess where he is on the path and to immediately see his next several steps. My greatest need is to have confidence in the framework and to embrace my role in helping Harry explore the depths of his situation and become self-accountable to his commitments.
Harry is an excellent example of clients not wanting coaching; they want to solve a problem. By providing a framework and coaching support, Harry is making substantial progress toward his goal with an ROI that far outweighs his investment.
Conclusion
If I were to flatten the two-dimensional invitation vs. challenge grid to one dimension, I would write it out in this order: boring, cozy, stressful, productive. When I am coaching a client, I need to assess the current feel of the session. From there, I need to consider whether I can move the session forward or whether it would benefit from staying where it is.
If the conversation feels boring, it might be tempting to bring challenge, but the jump from boring to stressful is usually too abrupt. The client is not ready yet for challenge. The next step after boring is cozy. I need to connect with the client. I need to hear their story. They need to hear a little of mine. They need to enter into a partnership with me.
If the conversation feels cozy, it will definitely feel awkward when I try to introduce some challenge. The author of Building a Discipleship Culture, Mike Breen, dubbed this move “the valley of the shadow of death,” referencing that foreboding description from Psalm 23. There is no easy way for the client to accept challenge, but the coach must trust that the invitation has been strong enough to allow at least some acceptable level of challenge.
If the conversation feels stressful, it will be tempting to fall back to cozy, and from time to time, it may be required. But at some point, the coach should find a rhythm that provides both invitation and challenge and move to a place of productivity and empowerment. It takes time to build this type of relationship.
Think through your client list. Where do they fall on the invitation vs. challenge grid? Are the conversations boring, cozy, stressful, or productive? What could you add to your next conversation that might move your coaching toward productive? Let me know what you find!
