> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # How to Get Better Team Results with Less Effort - URL: https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/how-to-get-better-team-results-with-less-effort/ - Published: 2026-09-10T17:06:44.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-10T17:06:44.000Z - Author: Maureen Carruthers Imagine your job is to push a heavy rock from one side of a field to the other. Under ideal conditions, pushing that rock is challenging, but doable. Then when you get about a third of the way across the field, the rock suddenly stops moving. You push a little harder. Nothing. You dig your feet in and push much harder. You push and push and push. Now you’re exhausted. You’ve expended more energy in the last hour than you did moving the rock across the entire first section of the field, and you have absolutely nothing to show for it. This isn’t a story about a rock pusher. If you lead a team of humans—especially creative or technical professionals—you know this feeling well. There are times when the work feels like a good kind of challenge, and times when you do everything you can think of to move forward, yet all you have to show for your effort is friction, fatigue, and frustration. ## Walking Around to the Other Side of the Rock If you were pushing a physical rock, you wouldn't just stand there straining your muscles against an immovable object forever; you’d stop, step back, and walk around to the other side to see what’s blocking it. When leading human systems, however, the obstacles aren't made of granite or timber. It’s much harder to see a hidden structural constraint than a physical log in the dirt. Because of this dynamic many team leads make a logical—but often inaccurate—assumption: *If we aren't moving forward, we must not be pushing hard enough.* So they push themselves harder. They push their teams harder. Everyone expends maximum energy, and the rock stays right where it is. ## Driving Forces vs. Restraining Forces In social psychology, Kurt Lewin captured this dynamic in his Force Field Analysis model. He showed that any current state of performance exists in a delicate equilibrium between two opposing sets of forces: - **Driving Forces:** These are the direct efforts taken to move toward your goal (inspiring speeches, slide decks outlining all the benefits of the new direction, policy changes, reminder emails). - **Restraining Forces:** These are counter-pressures holding the status quo in place (competing commitments, lack of resources, misunderstandings, organizational politics, etc.). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8d/c5/8dc5e28b-3481-43e4-a3fd-cca6ecf68582/content/images/2026/09/Effort----Impact.png) When your project stalls, applying more direct pressure doesn’t move things forward, it increases the counter-friction. The effort you are spending is essentially wasted. In this situation you have two choices. Use overwhelming force to break through the resistance and deal with the collateral damage, or identify and address the restraining force. I do not think you would be reading a site called Nonviolent Leadership if you felt good about using overwhelming force, so let’s talk about restraining forces. ## Alternatives to Rock Pushing Restraining forces become much easier to spot once you train yourself to look beneath the surface. When you stop pushing and start diagnosing, you can clear the path using a simple three-step cycle: Notice, Identify, and Refocus. ### **Notice** This seems obvious, but it’s often the hardest step. The moment you notice that standard effort is no longer yielding standard progress, stop pushing. Treat resistance not as a lack of effort from your team, but as diagnostic data telling you the terrain has changed. ### **Identify** Once you drop your hands from the rock, step back and get curious. What hidden "log" is jamming the mechanism? When debugging human systems, obstacles usually hide in a few [distinct layers](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/what-is-the-leadership-stack/) below the surface deliverable: - [**Interface:**](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/tag/interface/)Is work and information passing smoothly between team members? - [**Data**](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/tag/data/)**:** Are team members acting based on the most up to date and relevant information? - [**Permissions**](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/tag/permissions/)**:** Do team members have access to the context and authority they need to meet their objectives? - [**Security**](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/tag/security/)**:** Are your team members (consciously or unconsciously) blocking progress as a way to protect themselves or the team from perceived threats? - [**Operating System**](https://www.nonviolentleadership.com/tag/operating-system/)**:** Does the strategy you’ve chosen comply with the written AND unwritten rules that govern your organization? ### **Refocus** Once you have a working hypothesis about what’s blocking progress, redirect your effort. Instead of applying pressure to the rock, focus your leadership energy on removing the log. It’s tempting to feel like clearing logs is a distraction from "real work"—especially when you're evaluated on how far the rock moves. But in the long run, taking the time to dismantle a constraint moves the rock far faster and with fewer unintended consequences than continuing a brute force attack. ## You Can’t Push and Inspect at the Same Time The ultimate challenge of leadership is that you cannot push the rock and inspect the obstacle at the exact same moment. When you're leaning all your body weight into a project, your vision is zoomed into the work you want to move forward. You can't see restraining forces from that angle. You have to deliberately stop, step back, and survey the landscape yourself. Sometimes even that won’t give you enough distance. Then it’s helpful to get help from someone standing outside the system who can help you see what’s getting in the way. I’ve spent 20 years studying and navigating complex team environments– especially teams made up of highly intelligent and independent team members. I’ve pushed my own rocks and I’ve coached teams through tricky terrain, so it’s pretty likely I’ve been where you are now and can help you see your own rock in a new way. Sometimes just talking about the problem with someone who's been there is enough to get moving again. If you need a break from pushing your own rock, let me know, I’ll be happy to schedule some time with you to see what we can uncover together.