Breaks recurring execution blockers into clear actions and accountability, using an executive-tested framework grounded in behavior change.
When you categorized your barriers across the five types, which category had the most entries — and what does that tell you about where to focus first?
A director of marketing has been trying to launch a content strategy initiative for six months. Each time she presents it for approval, something blocks it — budget, competing priorities, a new organizational initiative that takes precedence. In coaching she describes the situation as 'impossible' and has started questioning whether she should pursue the initiative at all. She treats each external barrier as if it carries equal weight with her own capability and has stopped distinguishing between them.
Frame this as a sorting exercise before a strategy exercise. 'Before we plan how to move this forward, let's map every barrier on the table and sort them. Internal barriers and external barriers have different resolution paths, and treating them all the same is probably part of why this feels stuck.' The resistance to watch for: clients who are in an organizational blocking pattern often experience the internal/external sorting as an attempt to shift blame onto themselves. Name it: 'We're not looking for who's at fault — we're looking at which barriers are in your domain and which ones aren't, because the strategies are completely different.'
Watch the ratio of internal to external barriers the client identifies. Leaders who are genuinely organizationally blocked typically name a few significant external barriers and a handful of internal ones. If the client names eight or nine external barriers and one or two internal ones, either the organization is genuinely unusually obstructive or the internal barriers are being undercounted. Also watch how she describes the resolution path for internal barriers — if those rows are blank or generic, she may not be engaging with them at the same level as the external ones.
Start with the internal barriers column. 'Walk me through the resolution path you wrote for each of these.' Specificity here is diagnostic: 'build a better deck' is not a resolution path, 'identify the three stakeholders who influence budget approval and meet with each before the next proposal' is. Then ask about the external barriers: 'Which of these is actually in your control or influence?' Some external barriers have internal resolution paths — the client may not have seen that yet.
If the client's internal barrier list is consistently empty or superficial across multiple tool uses, and the external barrier list is dense and detailed, consider whether learned helplessness is operating. Severity: moderate. The client may have genuine organizational constraints, but the pattern of attributing all barriers externally while not engaging with internal resolution paths is worth naming directly.
A recently promoted senior manager has strong strategic thinking and consistent feedback that his proposals are excellent. He has delivered three significant initiatives in the past two years, each of which started well and then stalled or failed at implementation. His coach has noticed that he spends most of the strategy phase of coaching in detail but cannot articulate specific actions when execution begins. He attributes the failures to 'lack of organizational support' but hasn't mapped the specific barriers that appeared.
Use this tool as a retrospective before applying it to a current initiative. 'I want to run one of your past initiatives through this framework — the one that stalled most recently. We'll map the barriers that showed up, categorize them, and look at the resolution paths. That gives us a diagnostic we can then apply going forward.' Framing it retrospectively avoids the performance pressure of applying it to an active project and often produces more honest barrier identification.
This client's pattern — strong strategy, weak execution — often appears in the resolution path column. Watch whether he can write specific, time-bound actions for each barrier or whether the resolution paths are strategic rather than operational. 'Engage key stakeholders' is a strategic intention; 'schedule individual conversations with the three directors who will own implementation by the end of the week' is an operational resolution path. The level of specificity in the resolution path column maps directly to his execution capability.
After mapping the retrospective project, focus on one barrier that had a resolution path he didn't actually execute. 'You wrote this resolution path. What happened between writing this and not doing it?' This question usually surfaces a second-level barrier — often internal — that wasn't in the original map. The second-level barrier is often where the real coaching work lives.
If the client cannot identify any internal barriers in the retrospective — if every barrier is external — and the resolution paths he writes are all in the category of 'get others to change,' the coaching work may need to address accountability orientation before barrier resolution planning is useful. Severity: low to moderate. Continue the tool but explicitly name the observation: 'I notice the resolution paths you've written all involve other people taking action. Is there one barrier here that only you can address?'
A VP of People has been describing the same barrier in the same way for three months: a legacy performance management system that is driving talent loss but requires political capital and significant cross-functional coordination to replace. She knows what needs to happen. She has the credibility to lead it. She has not started. She describes it as 'waiting for the right moment' and 'building consensus.' Her coach suspects the real barrier is different from the one she has named.
This tool is useful here not to discover barriers but to make the named barriers specific. 'You've described what's in the way, but I want to make it concrete — for each barrier, a resolution path that has a name, a date, and an action attached to it. The exercise is short, but specificity tends to surface whether the barrier is actually what we think it is.' Clients who are avoiding action often use barrier identification as a substitute for resolution planning. The tool makes this visible by requiring the next column.
Watch whether she can write specific resolution paths for the barriers she names. A client who is genuinely waiting for conditions to improve will write resolution paths tied to conditions: 'When Q3 budget is finalized, initiate proposal.' A client who is avoiding will write resolution paths that are vague or indefinite: 'Continue building consensus,' 'Wait for alignment.' The vagueness is diagnostic — it indicates the barrier is functioning as a holding pattern rather than a genuine obstacle.
After reviewing the resolution paths, ask: 'If these resolution paths were executed, what would be left in the way?' This question often surfaces the real barrier — usually something in the internal column that she hasn't written down. If the answer is 'nothing,' the next question is: 'Which of these resolution paths could you start this week?' Resistance to starting anything specific is itself information.
If the client acknowledges that she knows what to do and can't articulate why she hasn't started — if 'I don't know' shows up when you probe the avoidance — the barrier may involve risk or loss that she hasn't examined. Severity: low. Continue coaching, but shift the focus: 'What's the cost of starting, and what's the cost of not starting?'
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