Breaking the Trust Barrier

CHAPTER 4Plow the Path

The best way to spur your team into action is by carving a path for them to follow and pulling them forward in your wake. Nothing is more demotivating to a team than a leader who sets high goals, walks away, and merely expects things to happen. You will never break the trust barrier that way. You need to get out on point, engage the elements, and make first contact with the things that slow your team down.

Barriers to goals can be physical or intangible, within or beyond your organization. They can stop you dead in your tracks or stymie your team to the point that they lose all will to accelerate. Watching your operation will expose many of those barriers, but nothing works as well as asking your team directly.

If we did ...