How to Build Alignment With Your Team

Alignment is when everyone on your team is on the same page. It may sound simple, although there is a lot more to it than we think. At Kindler and Company we work with a lot of leaders to help them build alignment in the right way - here's the first step. If it sounds simple, it's not. Alignment can be really hard.

Why? Because everybody has a different opinion.

Everybody cares about different stuff.

Now, some leaders think the key to alignment is to tell everyone what they should be doing. The truth is, alignment is not built by people listening to you.

It's built by people feeling heard.

So if you're trying to build alignment, don't start by saying, my way or the highway. Instead, start with this question - "What's important here?"

Allow your team to answer what they think is important about the future of your organization. Whatever it is you're trying to build alignment around now, chances are you're going to get a lot of different answers, and that's good. Letting people say out loud the different answers to that question and having you as a leader hear them, that is the first step in building alignment.