Business Insight Zone

When you fix the alignment on your car, everything runs smoother.

That little shimmy on the highway vanishes. Your mileage improves. Your brakes and tires work better and wear better.

Simple concept, really: you make sure that all the parts, all the systems are playing nicely together, and all pointed in the right direction.

But “alignment” gets a bad name in business because it has become a piece of jargon — like “buy-in” or “operationalize” or “net-net” (ugh).

It deserves that bad name, in many instances, because it’s not alignment in the sense that the mechanic at your garage uses. Instead, it means “falling in line behind the boss” or “not making a stink” or “raising objections only to have them summarily batted down.” It means straightening deck chairs as the ship takes on water. It’s the kind of alignment that afflicted GM and Chrysler for many years: you could take one of their cars to the shop and have it aligned lickety-split, but the companies couldn’t align themselves around the right goals in any meaningful sense.

Groupthink helps no one. It robs us of effectiveness because it takes a team’s diversity of views, experience, and expertise and grinds them into pablum.

Real consensus — forged through argument and analysis and discussion and passion and, sometimes, tears — drives some of the greatest businesses in the world.

Which one are you working toward?

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Photo by Billingham, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Category: Management