How often have you worked with a team that isn’t on the same page? This common work situation of being misaligned is not the team’s fault but the responsibility of the leader/manager.

What Elements Make up Team Alignment?
1. Purpose
2. Culture
3. Values
When any of these three elements are out of alignment, the result is a loss of efficiency, loss of productivity, loss of motivation, and an unacceptable work product. Team alignment is a critical success factor found in high-performing teams. If you find your team is out of alignment, your “job one” is to realign.

Steps to Contextual Alignment
1. Diagnosis – before starting any corrective action, you’ve got to understand what is broken and where. Look at the team holistically and then in parts.
A. Is there evidence where a person or process is not aligned? Be careful; it is easy to blame a process problem on a person. Look at these two elements in context with each other.
B. Is there evidence that team members, together or individually, don’t have a clear understanding of the purpose and value of their work?
C. Are the entire team and each member of the team living by the same cultural norms? This is often an alignment of work ethic and behavior.
D. Do each and all members approach their work with similar energy, effort, commitment, and passion?
E. Does the team members approach the work with similar values relative to quality, effort, and pride?
2. Prescribe – once you know what/where/who needs “fixed,” develop a communication and training plan to build on the team strengths while working to correct the deficiencies. This is very purposeful work with part of the result being an understanding of processes that need “fixed” or aligned and who needs to be trained or, sometimes, redirected to another opportunity.
3. Correct – meet with the team collectively and individually to communicate why there is a need for team realignment, where the misalignment is, how the team will work to get aligned, what this work looks like, who will do this work, what the end looks like, how will success be measured, tracked and reported, how the team and individuals will be held accountable and how the team, work product, organization, customer and individual benefit from attaining this alignment.

An aligned team performs expertly and creates significant pride in themselves, their work product, and the organization. This is necessary leadership work…

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