We, at BridgePort started to study the source of misalignment. We discovered a phenomenon where leaders had different assumptions about the future and different beliefs concerning the goals that they wish to accomplish. Inevitably, different goals and different assumptions lead to misalignment. When we investigated how people came to different conclusions, we discovered that people were accepting different assumptions as facts. The inclusion and exclusion of those different facts propagated conclusions. With different conclusions came silos… misalignment.

Additionally, we noticed that misalignment drove goal-switching. When people come to different conclusions and they often sense that achieving the common goal is not realistic. Instead of coming together to realign around the goal, they often find it easier to pick smaller, more achievable goals to focus on. When they suboptimize on the smaller achievable goals, alignment dissipates at an even faster rate. Unfortunately, when it happens, people within the organization convince themselves that they are “doing the right thing”. Often, they will even work harder and faster with their new, suboptimized goal then the original, common goal. In this way, they perpetuate misalignment without realizing it.

We have found that the most effective way to interrupt this pattern is to uncover the assumptions quickly and link them to the organizational goals. The traceability between the goals and assumptions must be visible for all to see. The visibility enables 2 important processes to occur:

1) When assumptions are linked to the goal and portions of the goal, the organization has the ability to validate whether or not the assumptions are valid. Once we remove attention from invalid assumptions, the organization has the space to rally around a common set of valid assumptions… enabling true alignment.

2) When assumptions are linked to goals, management has the ability to appropriately monitor the assumptions related to each goal. When conditions are no longer conducive to goal achievement, management can more easily see it, and pivot. This enables the type of goal switching that is positive, led by management, and communicable which enables better alignment.