We were working hard to complete the quarterly goal on time. It was within reach and while I was anxious, I was excited about hitting this target.
All we needed was help from another department.
“Are they going to have time to help us on short notice?” someone on the team asked me.
“Of course,” I answered confidently. “We have the same goal.“
The next day, I wasn’t so confident.
The other department couldn’t help—and I understood why. Their priorities were real. Their calendar was full.
I didn’t like it. It frustrated me.
But while we shared the same goal, they had made a different path. They had been free to make that choice. I respect that.
But we still missed our target.
Unaligned Freedom
This is the third installment in a series about empowerment using a principle known as Let People Run. It uses a F.A.R. framework made up of three key attributes: freedom, alignment, and responsibility.
Today, I want to expand on the often-underappreciated middle attribute: alignment.
Unlike freedom, which we hear about frequently and celebrate loudly, alignment tends to get far less attention.
Or perhaps I should say that it gets superficial attention. We believe we’ve done enough to align our teams, when in reality we haven’t.
We set high level goals and conclude that’s enough to get us there.
We are free – right? We don’t want to micromanage.
We start by ensuring that we state our mission, vision and even cultural pillars. And most likely we set annual, quarterly and sometimes monthly goals.
Simple enough. Everyone is working toward the same target, so we must be aligned.
Yet…when we fall short of these goals, we reach for explanations:
- “The target was too aggressive.”
- “Another team dropped the ball.”
- “Priorities shifted mid-quarter.”
But, if we dig a little deeper, we may find the real root cause.
We weren’t aligned. Not necessarily in the what, but in the how.
We had the same goal, but we lacked the coordination to get us there.
I learned this lesson firsthand – not in a conference room, but in a boat on the Cumberland River.
Dragon Boats
A few years ago in Nashville, I joined my company’s team for a dragon boat racing event. It was a beautiful September Saturday on the Cumberland River. I expected a relaxing day. What I got instead was a lesson in alignment I’ll never forget.
Here’s how it works, you and 19 of your fellow company teammates hop in what I can only describe as an oversized 40-foot canoe — adorned with, you guessed it, a fanciful head of a dragon. The goal is simple: you and your teammates paddle 200 meters down the river in the fastest time possible. Each boat even has their own drummer to keep everyone in unison. The conditions for success were set.
We all agreed on the goal — win our heat.
And, so, we were aligned.
Or were we?
We climbed into the boat, put in a couple of practice paddles, and waited for the starting signal.
Bang! The race began.
I started paddling hard. I’m in reasonably good shape, I told myself—I’ll help us win this.
But I saw the other boats pulling ahead of us. Paddle harder, I tell myself.
The person in front of me wasn’t paddling at my speed. Our paddles clashed. Across the boat I saw the same dysfunction. Water was flying everywhere. I was wet.
I saw the other boats pulling further ahead now. I hear the drum beat but I don’t need that — I just paddled faster. Does anyone even know how to paddle, I ask myself?
We lost. Miserably. And candidly, we were embarrassed.
It would’ve been easy to blame the team. Maybe we just didn’t have the right mix of athletes. Maybe we lacked the horsepower.
But that wasn’t it.
Dragon Boat v2
Before the second race, someone suggested we regroup. We were there to have fun, sure, but we also didn’t want to finish last again.
Someone said, “Our paddling was totally out of sync.” Another added, “Yeah, we need to follow the drumbeat.”
So, we tried that.
Same team. Same competition. Same goal.
Only this time, we paddled together. With the beat. In rhythm.
And, we won that second race by a very wide margin.
We felt like a team. We were coordinated. Synced.
And I still remember that euphoric feeling—not of winning, but of being aligned.
Goals are the Illusion of Alignment
Alignment often gets underappreciated. We just need to agree on the goals or say we’re “on the same page” and we believe we are magically aligned.
But this is where the underappreciation lies.
Alignment isn’t simply about agreement on the outcome—it’s about synchronization in the approach.
Without that, things break down. Gears spin without catching.
We hear the grinding. We feel the friction.
We see people working hard, but we never quite reach the goal.
It’s not laziness. It’s not incompetence.
It’s just that we accepted an illusion of alignment.
To be aligned, we needed to be coordinated.
Alignment and Micromanagement
In the realm of freedom, however, we can try to reject alignment as being too restrictive and even argue it’s micromanagement.
I’ve even heard hints that alignment should be minimized as it only leads to bureaucracy. I’m not kidding.
Coincidentally, I came across an article earlier this week which included the following quote from a professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD:
“The opposite of bureaucracy isn’t freedom and agility—it’s chaos.”
The same is true of alignment. Without it, we don’t get the progress that moves us forward.
Alignment is a form of structure. It’s the invisible framework that helps people use their freedom well. It’s more than a goal. Alignment defines how we make decisions, how we prioritize, how we move forward together.
If we want to empower our teams and ourselves, we can’t stop at freedom. We need to ensure that we build the structure that allows freedom to propel us forward.
Key Takeaway: Freedom, Aligned
Without alignment, freedom leads to chaos.
While the dragon boat race isn’t a perfect metaphor, it’s pretty close. Everyone in that boat had freedom to paddle to their own abilities and their own beat. But it was only when we got coordinated – truly aligned – that we were able to succeed.
It’s the same in business. We put our heads down and focus on that goal. Too often, we lose sight of the fact that we are part of an overall team. A team that needs to work together – aligned – to achieve our goals.
We need to go beyond goal setting to reach alignment.
We need to coordinate and communicate.
True alignment paves the way for freedom to shine.
So, I ask you: What alignment gaps might be hiding under the surface of your goals?
