Getting an organisation or a team pointing consistently in the same direction is famously difficult.

Unfortunately, we face a counter-intuitive truth: You can’t control your way to alignment.

On the contrary, to achieve genuine commitment to a direction from which momentum will really build, we need to let go of absolute control (albeit in the context of clear outcome expectations) and allow sustained, self-organising, interdependent, coherent behaviour to deliver the breakthrough we need.

Is strategic alignment critical to your organisation’s performance? That seems likely. And yet, the instinct for more control – more oversight, more alignment meetings, tighter direction – actually makes things worse, creating compliance, not commitment. And compliance is too slow and fragile for today’s turbulent environment.

We tend to think alignment only comes through stronger direction and more oversight, but that’s not true.

Real alignment requires finishing the strategic debates, building genuine commitment, and creating the conditions for self-organising behaviour and discretionary effort, simply making everything easier and faster.

We can take a systematic approach to achieving this counterintuitive shift, creating breakthroughs for organisations struggling with competing initiatives and fragmented effort.

Some of the themes to consider are:

• Moving from control to alignment and why this creates breakthrough momentum
• How to finish strategic debates so your teams genuinely commit, not just comply
• Building the relationship skills, trust and interdependence making self-organisation possible
• Releasing control while maintaining clear expected outcomes
• Modelling alignment in the senior team so that it cascades throughout the organisation
• Creating agility without chaos and focus without rigidity

Some of the benefits are:

• Achieving more with the same or fewer resources
• Increased staff engagement, discretionary effort and retention
• Transforming business results

Is your current approach to alignment taking too much effort? Is it delivering the momentum you need?

If this article has struck a chord, why not join our Strategic Leaders’ online monthly workshop group to work on these issues with a group of peers?