Organizations talk a lot about things like resilience, teamwork, creativity, courage, patience, adaptability and communication. Schools do too. So do sports teams. Most of us would probably agree that they’re worth developing.
The challenge is that they’re difficult to build in the abstract.
You don’t become more resilient because someone tells you resilience matters. You become more resilient when something goes wrong and you have to decide what to do next. Creativity becomes useful when the obvious solution isn’t working. Teamwork becomes necessary when the challenge requires more than one person can provide.
In other words, the behaviour needs somewhere to happen.
That idea has become one of the most important parts of how I think about records.
A challenge gives the behaviour somewhere to live
Imagine telling someone that you want them to become more patient. They can understand the concept and agree that it’s valuable, but patience becomes real when progress is slower than expected or when the fifth attempt still doesn’t work.
The same is true of resilience. We don’t need much resilience when everything is going according to plan. We need it after the miss, the mistake or the disappointing result.
A meaningful challenge naturally creates those situations because there is a gap between what people can do today and what they’re trying to accomplish. Closing that gap creates problems to solve.
What isn’t working? What could we change? Do we need help? Is there another approach? How do we respond when we’ve worked hard and the result still isn’t there?
Those aren’t theoretical questions anymore. They’re part of the experience.
The difficulty has a purpose
We spend a lot of time trying to make things easier, faster and more efficient, and there are plenty of situations where that makes sense. But if the goal is growth, removing every difficulty can also remove the opportunity that creates the growth.
That doesn’t mean making a challenge unnecessarily frustrating or setting people up to fail. The target still needs to be believable. That’s where The Goldilocks Record™ fits into the idea.
The challenge should be difficult enough that people have to stretch, experiment and adjust, but not so impossible that the pursuit becomes pointless.
If success is guaranteed from the beginning, the experience probably won’t require much resilience or creativity. There won’t be much reason to change the plan because the existing plan is already enough.
When the target is meaningfully hard, the struggle serves a purpose.
The result matters, but it isn’t the only thing happening
I don’t like the idea that the result of a record attempt somehow doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. If people have spent weeks or months preparing for something, they want to succeed. The uncertainty is part of what makes the attempt exciting.
But while everyone is watching the final number, other things are happening too.
People are learning how they communicate when they’re under pressure. They’re discovering whether they blame each other or solve the problem together. They’re seeing what happens when the plan needs to change. They’re learning how they respond to a bad practice, an unexpected obstacle or an attempt that doesn’t go the way they hoped.
Those moments can matter long after the final result is known.
That’s why I think a record can be much more than an achievement. It can create an environment where people have a reason to practise the things they say they value.
The record provides the target, but the pursuit creates the opportunity.
The record is what people attempt. The opportunity is what transforms them.