The Illusion of Alignment
You walk out of a meeting feeling good.
Everyone nodded. The plan made sense. The energy felt right.
Then, a few days later, three teams take three different actions on the same issue.
That’s when you realize that what you had wasn’t alignment.
Alignment isn’t everyone nodding in agreement. You can’t determine alignment with a yes or no question. Alignment runs too deep for that.
True alignment is when everyone making the same decision when you’re not in the room.
When alignment isn’t real, the cracks show up fast:
Conflicting choices between teams
Escalations over decisions that should’ve been simple
Frustrated customers who feel the inconsistency before you do
How to Test for Real Alignment
Here are three practical ways to find out whether alignment is real or just rehearsed:
Decision Test. Give five people the same scenario — a pricing dilemma, a customer escalation, a budget cut. If alignment is real, they’ll land in roughly the same place.
Trade-off Test. When priorities collide — speed vs. quality, revenue vs. customer experience — do people know which wins by default?
Story Test. Ask each leader to explain your strategy like they would to a new hire. Would their versions be 80% the same, or five completely different stories?
How to Build True Alignment
You don’t get real alignment by accident. You have to build it by making decisions predictable, not just visible.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Shared Principles – Agree on the why behind decisions, not just the outcomes. When trade-offs arise, principles act like a compass. (“We protect customer trust before we optimize revenue.”)
Explicit Priorities – Stack-rank what matters most, so teams don’t have to guess. (“If growth and profitability ever conflict this quarter, growth wins.”)
Shared Language – Create short phrases that travel fast. (“One team, one customer.” “Default to yes.”) These become verbal shortcuts that anchor behavior.
Reinforcement – When you see someone act in line with those principles, call it out. Recognition teaches the culture what ‘aligned’ looks like.
Alignment sticks when your team can predict each other’s moves when the play changes.
So the next time you leave the room, ask yourself: “Would they all make the same call without me there?”
