Lack of strategic alignment

This is a very pompous title for this post. I could also have written “how to win a free bottle of wine by always winning bets”. The reason is that I have very often bet and always won with some managers that if they go to someone in their team and ask them what their top 3 priorities are it would never match what they expect them to answer.”

Unfortunately I always win! Lack of alignment between the manager and his/her team on the top priorities is a recurring issue.

We always massively overestimate how much we are understood. We always think that what is clear to us is clear to everyone else. The root cause is that we have thought so much about it, we have designed the plan for weeks in our mind, we have processed it over and over, we have discussed it, planned it, so once we share it, we make it public, we then think that everyone else will get the EUREKA instantly. Of course it should be clear for them since it is so clear for oneself!

Unfortunately this is obviously not the case, the main reason is that we have not given the same amount of time to the other party to process it, as we did. The real issue is that because it is so clear to us, we take it for granted that it is the same for everyone else, and this is a major problem because we then live in parallel worlds, we think everyone else understand, while they don’t.

We should all realize that we always overestimate how much we are understood. Once we are aware of this, then it allows us to take the necessary actions, which means to over-communicate, to over-explain, to repeat the message, to keep the message super clear and simple.

Then we need is to verify that we are understood, for this just ask questions such as:

• what are our top priorities this month, quarter, year?
• what do I expect from you?
• what are the priorities of our team, company?
• what is important to me?

Once a manager and his/her team are aligned big things can be achieved.

I cannot end this post without saying that I have made this mistake many times. There was one time when it really hit me, about 10 years ago, at a time when I asked a consultant to coach me, because I needed it. One of his first question was whether our strategy was clear to all the key leaders of the company and my answer as without any hesitation: Yes of course!

To be safe, we applied the tips I shared above and we asked them what they thought our strategy was, and guess what… I should have bought a bottle of wine to the consultant at that time because I lost big time!

But I need to also say that I have faced and still face this issue often. But now I am aware of this, so I can correct the situation sooner. Every time I face an internal frustration about something that is not done the way I was expecting it, the first question I ask myself is whether it was clear to the other person or team what my expectations were, and I often lose / win when I bet with myself, so this is why I very often open a bottle of wine for dinner!

If there is one thing to keep from this post is that we always overestimate how much we are understood.