SEM 15: Create Alignment And Clarity
SEM 15: Create Alignment And Clarity
Use these 6 questions to build clarity and alignment
Alignment is about keeping everyone moving in the same direction and focused on achieving the same goals. This is hard to achieve in large teams because there will always be many competing priorities and people with different opinions.
A cohesive team working in alignment can become a powerful and unstoppable force, enabling it to outcompete any competition regardless of industry or market.
Patrick Lencioni
The Problem
If a team lacks alignment, there will be conflict, confusion, and inefficiency, as everyone will pull in different directions.
Even if your company is full of intelligent, well-intentioned people, it's hard to get everyone focused and moving in the same direction. Alignment, clarity, and focus are essential to high-performing teams.
High-performing teams have clarity of purpose, plan, and responsibility. They know why their work matters, what's important, how to measure success, and who should do what.
What Most People Do
Most people don’t know how to check for misalignment, so it goes unnoticed. If you don’t have a way to check for misalignment, chances are it’s there, but you don’t realise it.
I recommend having a reliable system to build alignment that involves using questions to check for differences of opinion across your team.
Questions are powerful because they reveal differences in thinking quickly and easily.
The 6 Alignment Questions
If you're struggling with alignment in your team, I recommend reviewing and answering these 6 clarity questions together. At a minimum, your leadership team should be fully aligned on the answers to these questions.
The great thing about these questions is they leave little room for ambiguity. If there is misalignment, these questions will surface and make it obvious.
You can review them independently to create clarity or with your team to ensure alignment.
If the answers to questions like “Where are we going?” or “What is important now?” sound like “I don’t know”, you have work to do.
6 questions:
1. Where are we going? (Vision)
2. Why does our work matter? (Purpose)
3. What are we choosing to do? (Focus)
4. What are we choosing NOT to do? (Strategy)
5. What is important now? (Goals, Priorities)
6. Who is responsible for what? (Responsibility)
If you can answer these questions, you're ahead of 99% of teams.
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