On Leadership: Why Alignment and Agreement Can be Used to Speed Teamwork (with Adam Reynolds)
Agreement and Alignment are often, incorrectly, assumed to be interchangeable words when, in reality, they have distinctly different meanings and purposes within the context of efficiently working teams. Being conversant about these differences helps teams perform at higher levels.
(Note: Adam Reynolds, now of Adam Reynolds’ Leadership and Tim worked together at Misty Robotics — Adam as Head of Human Performance and Tim as CEO. We perfected this usage os agreement and alignment while there.)
Background
We have often found teams of people who use the word “agreement” and “alignment” interchangeably, assuming that they either mean the same thing or, for all intents and purposes, mean the same. Understandable. They sound similar and are in the same zip code of one another.
However, when one assumes that alignment means agreement one is asking for any number of headaches after the moment of decision including future disagreements and finger pointing, hurt feelings that a point of view was not listened to or appreciated, frustration that a point of view was not surfaced, or the supremely unhelpful “I told you so.”
“I told you so” is one of those innocuous sounding phrases that has deeply damaging implications for high-performing teams. It is either the seed of descension, a moment of condescension, a moment of egoic exaltation, or the surfacing of hidden conflicts — none of which are helpful for groups of people working hard to become a high-performing team.
At the same time, teams who have rich, “debate-filled,” thorough conversations around meaningful decisions, solutions or courses of actions, those teams tend to be the ones who succeed more (i.e. are high-performing). See some of the references for background on this concept that rich debate leads to better outcomes.
Thus, for those groups who are seeking to be as high-performing as they can be, deciding to be crisp and clear with language and utilizing the conversational tools to fully plumb the depths of these two words is a decision well worth making.
Agreement
Definition
1a: harmony of opinion, action, or character : CONCORD
— There is widespread agreement on this issue.
1b: the act or fact of agreeing
— She nodded her head in agreement.
2a: an arrangement as to a course of action
— reached an agreement as to how to achieve their goal
— a trade agreement
According to Websters with ancillary definitions available in the reference link.
Meaning
Agreement is the easier of the two words to understand and execute upon because most of us have a very innate sense of the words meaning: we agree on the decision, point of view, world view, course of action, diagnosis, or solution being pondered by the team. No hidden agendas are usually visible when one says to the team: “I agree” — it seems clear that the person has no significant alternative and, importantly, no emotional dissonance.
Usage
Most groups and teams would agree: “it’s good for a team to be in agreement.” It normally signals many aspects of healthy, high-performing teams:
- We have had a good, productive, and far- ranging debate
- We have uncovered multiple points of view
- We have listened carefully and clearly to one another
- We can have high confidence of moving forward, together
- We all have the same picture of success or a successful outcome
- We can move forward into the future more quickly
Implications
Teams should work hard to get to agreement for all the above reasons.
However, if any team member perceives that one of the above bullet points is not entirely true, then that diagnosing team member has an obligation to the others to probe and make sure that all members of the team do believe them to be true.
How? By asking questions. By probing. By wondering. “I sense your picture of the path forward isn’t the same as mine; what’s your picture?.” “I sense that we haven’t fully heard your point of view or that you’re not feeling heard?”
It is especially important to pursue the pathway to agreement for high impact decisions/solutions/courses-of-action. It would be overkill to probe everyone on the ins and outs of their picture of where lunch will be and how they feel about it. Definitely not overkill to probe whether we should exit or enter a particular line of business or alter, entirely, our business model.
What if I cannot Agree?
It happens. And, it happens more often than one might want to admit. Most of the time it happens over a decision/solution/course-of-action that has lower impact or meaning for us personally.
If you cannot agree, then ask: “Can I Align?”
Alignment
Definition
which leads to…
1: to bring into line or alignment
— aligned the books on the shelf
1: to get or fall into line
— He aligned with his friends against a common enemy.
According to Websters with ancillary definitions available in the reference link.
Meaning
This is where things become more subtle. Ask ten people what the meaning of “alignment” is and you’ll probably get as many answers (unlike “agreement”).
Notably, above, it is about “falling in line.” It is about agreeing even if you disagree.
Why would one want to agree to a decision/solution/course-of-action when one does not fundamentally agree? There are multiple reasons:
- To demonstrate that you trust the decision-maker (who is usually a teammate), building confidence in the strength of the team. “You’re the expert in this domain — so while I don’t entirely agree, you have more knowledge and expertise so I can align with your decision.”
- To indicate that the decision is not as material to you nor to your understanding of materiality for the team than other decisions.
- Because being in alignment is more important to the team than your specific point of view about this specific topic.
- And explicitly not to move a conversation along because it has become tedious or contentious.
Usage
In practice we want to use the word “alignment” and the process of moving from agreement to alignment to uncover more information for the decision-maker/solution-owner/course-correction-owner.
When one of the team is not “in agreement” then “can you at least get into alignment”?
Sometimes the answer is a quick yes; sometimes the team needs to ask the next question: “what would it take to get you into alignment?” which, in and of itself, provides even more information to the process. Often vital details are uncovered that improve the decision/solution/course-of-action or the information leads to a meaningful modification to the decision/solution/course-of-action. After all, why wouldn’t a team want to get to the absolute best place, as a team?
Frequently, a team will have members who align on a particular decision/solution/course-of-action for a time — with an explicit agreement to revisit at a specific future time after the team has received more information. That future moment really becomes just a new moment for agreement (and/or alignment) — with the advantage of having already had a robust dialog and, now, a richer set of information to contribute it.
Implications
Once you have gotten to this point of alignment there is no going back. At this point, because we all now understand the distinction between the two words, their usage, and implications — especially the positive impact on the higher performance of the team, it is not acceptable to, at some future moment, say “yeah — I told you so” or “yeah — this is why I wasn’t in agreement in the first place.” The team has been thorough, it has heard you, a decision has been made, you have explicitly aligned. How much damage do you want to cause by going back against thegrain?
What if I can neither Agree nor Align?
This is where the distinction and usage becomes magical.
If you can neither agree nor align that is your signal it is time to leave the team.
Whoa; what?!? Leave the team?! Isn’t that a bit drastic.
Not if you have been thorough in the process, heard all points of view, and still believe the materiality to the team is so high that you cannot agree. If it is that material, and the decision is to go a direction in which you think the team’s prospects would be harmed beyond repair then why would it make sense to stay?
At this point it is quite simple: “the team decided to play soccer and I signed up to play in the orchestra — this team isn’t for me.”
A tangential beauty here is that it uncovers two distinct aspects for you and for the team:
- Is it really that material (from your viewpoint?) or might it actually not be as material as you are inclined to believe? This is often the case when we are dealing with a subject that is personal and/or has somehow become emotional.
- It might demonstrate to the rest of the team that they have vastly underestimated the materiality to the team. It will cause a second look. “If you’re convinced enough about the negative effects here — enough so that you’re willing to leave the team — we sure better be convinced ourselves of the path we’ve decided.”
And… it’s OK to be wrong
Nobody is perfect.
It’s worth saying again: nobody is perfect.
And, yet, decisions must be made every day; problems solved, solutions invented and we imperfect humans are the ones who must move forward each day. We can all agree on something — and all be wrong. We can all align with the decision maker — and be wrong for having aligned. It happens.
What’s caustic, egotistic and works against great teamwork is flouting our “right-ness” in the face of those who were wrong. After all, we’ll be wrong too and we’ll want our teammates to support us in those moments just as they support us in our successes.
The best way to approach being wrong is to own it: “turns out I was wrong”. Step into it (others will respect the heck out of you when you do) and address it. Make course corrections as soon as possible (see On Leadership: Success or Success).
Summary
When teams can be very conscious in their deliberations to use the words Agreement and Alignment in their distinctly different meanings, the words themselves can drive a thorough, robust, respectful, and deliberative process where all members of the team are heard and the best decisions are made.
