Getting Aligned

Two posts from Tom Peters blog reminded me of a post that I’ve saved since October 0f 2006.  It’s funny how some things just seem to be important but you don’t know why.

Here’s the point…this post on Tom Peters’ blog from two weeks ago asks the question…"Alignment:  Is there such a thing?"  The point of the article (IMO) is that alignment isn’t a "lock-step" thing but more of a "relative" thing whereby individuals act in a way that advances the overall organization even if there are subtle differences in their approaches and activities.  It’s not binary – it has shades of gray.

Then there is this post from Tom Peters’ blog about a week later that asks, "What’s Culture Got To Do with It?"  To quote the post:  "If strategy and culture are not aligned, the culture may support
behaviors that conflict with what has to get done—and actually block
execution of the strategy."

There’s that "alignment" thing again.  So – is alignment important and do we need alignment to be successful?

Here’s the post from the Ed Batista blog from this past October that came back to me when I read these two articles – Agreement VS Alignment.

The graphic below (borrowed from Ed Batista who borrowed from Clinton Moloney of the Trium Group) makes a distinction between alignment and agreement in that alignment is easier to obtain than agreement.

What I think is happening is that companies and people are using these two words interchangeably and that is causing problems.

In most cases all we really need is alignment in order to get work done.  To move the needle little by little I need to get people to a least accept my point of view (with all it’s shades of gray) in order to get moving in a specific direction.

If we first focus on alignment we can get some work done.  Trying to get agreement first means we have to work very hard for a long while to just get to a point where we can get moving on specific tasks.  Getting people to align their effort toward a goal (whether they agree or not) is much easier.

My recommendation – get alignment – worry about agreement later.  Besides – do you really need everyone to agree with you?  If they do – you don’t really need them around.