One of the key skills of the most successful HR business partners is being able to challenge AND maintain a good relationship with the client. In our research we found that this willingness to challenge on issues that benefit the client becomes the foundation for deeper more trusting relationships. Relationships that add value to the client and drive change in the business. In our work we see relationships and an enabler to achieving business goals. In the words of Dilts, Deering and Russell in Alpha Leadership achieving ‘task through relationship'.

If this is your goal, being able to challenge and get the client to take action is essential. Yet we all know how difficult it can be to give bad news, the challenge that the client does not want to hear, and still keep the person action oriented to achieve the goal. Some recent research* in the medical field underlies just how difficult this can be even for doctors who are trained to give some of the most difficult news but who also need the patient to take action, often to enable life saving treatment. Most ‘bad news' training focuses on the reaction of the receiver, but recent research would suggest that more focus on the giver is needed. 40% of doctors admitted to putting an inaccurate or overly positive gloss on bad news in order to relieve themselves of the burden of dealing with the patient's reaction.

I wonder what the percentage would be if HR professionals were asked the same question? Imagine, for example giving the bad news to a client that their idea would not work or would damage their career prospects. The problem is most of us are psychologically wired to avoid confronting the reality of a situation, but this tendency also takes away our ability to take a better course of action. Back to the client, would they be more distresseg by momentary discomfort as you describe the consequences of their proposed course of action or relieved that they are helped to find a better solution? Another problem facing the challenging HRBP is that following the meeting delivering the challenge the emotions aroused (especially when it is something of importance to the client) can mean that they cannot remember the better course of action or indeed why what they proposed was such a problem.

To successfully do this it is important to be clear about your goals as the challenger. Are you doing this because you have to, because the policy or your boss says so? Or are you challenging because you know it is the best thing for the client and the business? If the former you are likely to be more focused on getting it over with and you getting out of the situation. If the latter you will be more focused an ensuring a successful outcome for the client that includes the steps they will take to achieve the goal in a more successful way.

So for HR people to successfully challenge the client focus on delivering the challenge with your focus on the receiver, the client not yourself and having clear suggestions about the steps that will achieve the goal more successfully.

*Kate Sweeney, James A Sheppard. Being the best bearer of bad tidings Review of General Psychology