"Messy" Conversations That Lead to True Team Alignment

Bringing teams into alignment around complex projects requires dealing with the hidden emotional component that is held in the fears and concerns of each individual.

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At first, this process involves some messiness that is critical to creating true team alignment. Individuals do not "learn", i.e. hear the answer until they know what the question is. The solution cannot be fully appreciated if the complexity of the problem is not understood. Instead of providing an orderly exposition of solutions, which most leaders pride themselves in, the first phase needs to be about raising the critical questions about what could make the project fail.

Most teams do not respect this natural process of learning and therefore alignment is generally superficial if not outright fake. Only authentic open conversations can truly align teams. What we do is provide the safety needed for these conversations to take place and ensure that no topic gets swept under the rug.

The work of the team is cognitive but is based on emotional understanding. Many team leaders don't know how to tackle this role.  It needs skills and experience to patiently hold a safe space for work groups.  This is hard to train in team leaders as even experienced coaches tend to want to provide the 'right' answers.