Trust Walk

What it is

Trust Walk is about leading, following, trusting and communicating. Many leadership styles emerge during the event — some people find being responsible for another person’s safety difficult, others find it exhilarating. To trust, or to give up control, can be genuinely hard for some people, and that discomfort is where the learning lives.

How it works

After pairing up, each person takes turns leading their partner through a course of obstacles — often blindfolded — overcoming adversity along the way. It looks so simple that many people never stop to strategize, or to find out exactly how far ‘ten steps forward’ actually is for their partner — and some even start to ‘cheat.’ That gap is the coaching lesson: we have to communicate with people the way they hear it best, not the way we’d prefer to say it. With a few variations you can run it in isolated pairs, then all pairs at once, which creates a completely different level of communication across the room.

Who it’s for

Trust Walk is perfect for any group that has to instruct, direct or supervise others. Communicating in the style the receiver hears best is a deceptively hard skill to practice — you can tell someone all day long in a classroom, but actually doing it is another thing entirely. Under pressure we instinctively default to what we know. It makes a great way to open or close an event, meeting or workshop where a little honest self-examination pays off. (One safety note: we don’t recommend any motorized vehicles during this event — full setup and safety guidance is in the downloadable guide below.)

What your team takes away

A felt understanding of trust, and a sharper instinct for communicating on the listener’s terms — something every supervisor, educator and manager should master before heading back to work.