Alarm bells should start ringing the next time you outline your strategy and the room falls silent.
Yes, heads are nodding and nobody is objecting and you’ve probably even left the room concluding that everybody is aligned.
But are they?
HBR notably challenged this assumption recently, arguing that many leaders confuse agreement with alignment. Leaders often believe they share the same understanding of why change is needed and what success looks like and how it should happen.
In reality, they leave the room holding different assumptions. Or as IMI Associate Faculty Eric Fitzpatrick often says, “What you think you’re saying is not how you’re being understood.”
The consequences rarely appear immediately, but you’ll pay for them over time.
Expect diverging priorities and teams making different trade-offs and resources that move in unexpected directions. It won’t be long before people are frustrated that the strategy isn’t being ‘executed as planned.’
This will usually be followed by questions like ‘do we have the right people to deliver our strategy?’
Yet when IMI is brought into organisations to help align leaders and their communication around strategy, we often notice that inconsistent delivery of strategy based on people capability isn’t the issue. Instead, the real issue is inside the leadership team.
And it started when the strategy was announced.
Agreement was assumed without being tested. Healthy leadership teams don’t avoid disagreement; they create space for it. They ask awkward questions that stay respectful before the organisations starts moving. They clarify what will change, but also what won’t change, and where difficult trade-offs will sit.
The conversation may feel slower, but in practice it usually makes execution and delivery faster.
So the next time you leave a strategy meeting convinced everyone is aligned, resist the temptation to move on. Instead, ask one more question.
Ask each executive in the room, how will you describe today’s decision to your team tomorrow?
And then see if they are telling the same story.
Author: Gary Berney – Head of Marketing & Membership
Interested in improving your capability in this area? IMI has a range of programmes that will help, including:
Professional Diploma in Leadership
Communicating for Performance
Professional Diploma in Strategy & Innovation
Enhancing Inter-team dynamics
HBR article referenced is The False Alignment Trap