How Smart Teams Think Before They Build
You’re in a room with some of the sharpest minds in the project—architects, builders, designers—all gathered for what’s supposed to be a big-picture alignment session.
Everything about the moment suggests we should be kicking things off with inspiration.
Something like:
“Let’s talk about what success looks like.”
But that’s not what we did.
We asked:
“It’s the end of the project. It was a disaster. Everything went wrong. What happened?”
The room went quiet. People shifted in their seats. Someone let out a nervous laugh. Then another voice chimed in. And before long, everyone was talking—not about dreams, but about everything that could go wrong.
"Mismatched expectations."
"Unclear scope."
"Miscommunication."
"Design intent lost in translation."
"Blown timelines."
"Client frustration."
"Work that gets redone".
"Or worse—work that gets defended when it shouldn’t."
This wasn’t a venting session. It was a mirror. And it revealed something deeper than any visioning exercise could.
What we were really doing was speaking directly to the dominant motivational pattern we see again and again on high-performing construction teams:
The Away From meta-program.
This isn’t a personality type or a fixed trait. It’s a filter— one that governs where a person’s attention naturally goes when they think about decisions, pressure, and performance.
Some people are Toward thinkers. They move toward goals, opportunity, and success. Others are Away From thinkers. They move away from failure, from risk, from things falling through the cracks.
Most clients — the homeowners and developers — tend to be Toward. They’re fueled by vision. They dream in possibility. They’re building for what could be.
But those same visionaries, often without realizing it, surround themselves with teams of Away From thinkers.
Because if you’re investing millions into something personal and complex, you want people who see risk before it materializes. Who scan for landmines. Who don’t sleep until they know it’s right.
And those are the people we find making up the majority of the project teams.
That’s why the question works.
It bypasses abstraction. It cuts through the buzzwords. It meets people exactly where their mind already is.
The room suddenly sees itself clearly. People speak up who otherwise stay quiet. And now, we can start doing the real work.
Not by pitching lofty dreams. But by asking:
“If that’s the disaster, what’s the dream?”
“If that’s what we’re avoiding, what are we working toward?”
“How do we not just avoid disaster, but build something remarkable?”
Now, the team is building a shared mental model — not because they were sold on a vision, but because they helped build it, from the inside out.
At Dubrow Group, this is how we lead.
We’ve spent years working alongside teams, paying attention to how people really operate under pressure — not just what they say, but how they move, where they hesitate, and what they’re trying to protect.
We bring our background as certified professional coaches into every project — not as a separate layer, but as the foundation of how we lead.
We use those skills to listen differently, ask sharper questions, and create space where people can be honest — not just efficient.
It’s not “coaching” and then “construction.” It’s leadership that makes the work actually work.
This approach works because it’s not theoretical. It’s built for the specific pressures of this work. When everyone knows the goal and feels ownership of how to get there, things start to move differently.
🔑 Field Insight:
Away From thinkers are not negative — they are necessary. They are the reason high-risk projects don’t fall apart. But they cannot operate at their best without a shared vision.
If you try to lead them with dreams, they’ll quietly resist. But if you let them map the minefield, they’ll help you build the road.
Because once they feel seen, they become something powerful:Not just problem-solvers… but co-architects of success.