No Goal, No Alignment

Exploring the Lake District taught me about teams.

A few years ago, my wife and I had a joint couples retreat in the Lake District with my friend, Sam, and his wife. A long car journey behind us, we sat exhausted around a dinner table. We began planning the upcoming day of hiking, only pausing to gorge on delectable morsels in front of us.

“So where will you both be heading?”, Sam asked my wife and I.

“We thought we might just ramble the hills opposite the hotel. Maybe we’ll find our journeys align later on?”, I responded.

“But, if you don’t know where you’re going, how could our journeys align?”

“What do you mean?”, I asked quizzically.

“We can only align in relation to a destination. Either you align to our destination and come on our journey, or we align to your destination and come on your journey. Or we both agree on a new destination altogether. But without a destination, there’s nothing to align to.”, suggested Sam.

Something in my head clicked.

In organisations, we often talk about ‘aligning’ teams. But ‘align’ is a relative term, and begs the question: in relation to what?

For teams to align, they must have an overarching goal against which they want to cooperate. Without this goal, there is simply nothing to align against.

Likewise, phrases such as ‘improving a process’, ‘maturing a team’, ‘making progress’ make sense only in relation to a goal. Without a goal, these terms hold no meaning: what are we improving, maturing, or progressing toward?

Drucker furthers, “... one first has to know what the objectives and goals are before one knows what one should measure.”

The takeaway? ‘Align’, ‘improve’, ‘mature’, and ‘progress’ only hold meaning in relation to a goal. Without a goal, these terms can only mean “we're lost, but we're making good time” (in the words of Yogi Berra).