What Are We Carrying Into Alignment?
The “E” is slowing down the “GO.” That phrase had been sitting in my head because EGO becomes GO when one letter is removed. I liked the simplicity of it: sometimes movement becomes easier when we remove what is getting in the way. That wordplay became the inspiration for this video. I wanted to find another word that could lose a few letters and become something more desirable, which was much harder than I expected. Eventually, MISALIGNMENT gave me exactly what I needed. Knock away three letters, M-I-S, and what remains is ALIGNMENT.
It was a fun concept to work through because the visual fits the reality surprisingly well. Alignment often comes from removing a few things the organization has been carrying, protecting, or avoiding.
How Misalignment Accumulates
Most of us can spot everyone else’s baggage fairly quickly. We can see the priorities they are protecting, the decisions they are avoiding, and the territorial behavior hiding behind the word “ownership.” Our own baggage is harder to recognize. Somehow, the things we carry tend to get classified as experience, commitment, or “strategically important.” I have been guilty of this too!!! 😬
Misalignment usually develops gradually. Teams optimize around their own goals. Leaders become attached to the ideas they helped create. Functions protect resources and processes because they believe they are doing what is best for the business. When direction, decision rights, or ownership remain unclear, every group fills in the gaps for itself. Each choice can appear reasonable on its own. The problem becomes visible when those choices are placed next to one another and the organization realizes that everyone is working hard in slightly different directions. Our instinct is often to add something to fix it. We add another meeting, another layer of governance, another planning template, or another cross-functional team. Sometimes those additions help. Sometimes they simply give the existing misalignment a more organized calendar.
The video made me think about the reverse question: What could we remove? A few possibilities come to mind:
A priority that no longer fits. It may have made sense when it was created, while the market, customer, or larger strategy has since moved.
A process we have protected too long. The original purpose may have faded even though the activity surrounding it continues.
A decision we keep postponing. Ambiguity gives every team permission to create its own answer.
Territory disguised as ownership. Clear ownership helps an organization move. Protecting a boundary can quietly prevent others from contributing.
An idea that has become personal. Once our identity gets attached to a recommendation, questions about the idea can feel like questions about us.
None of these things make someone a bad leader. They reflect normal human behavior, especially when people care deeply about their work and feel responsible for the results.
What Are We Willing to Put Down?
The difficult part is recognizing what we are carrying while we are still carrying it. A process feels necessary because it is familiar. A priority feels important because we have invested in it. An unresolved decision feels safer because making it will disappoint someone. Real alignment asks leaders to examine their own contribution to the weight. Where am I protecting my function at the expense of the larger objective? Which priority am I keeping alive because changing it would require admitting that the original answer has expired? What am I calling ownership that others may experience as control? Those questions can be uncomfortable, although they are often more useful than another general conversation about collaboration. Alignment improves when direction is clear, choices are made, ownership is understood, and people are willing to release the things that no longer serve the whole.
That is what I like about the visual (and hope people takeaway from it): MISALIGNMENT becomes ALIGNMENT when M-I-S gets knocked away. Three letters disappear, the remaining word becomes clearer, and everything can finally move together. Real organizational alignment is obviously more complicated than wordplay. Still, the underlying question is worth asking: What might we need to remove before we can move in the same direction?
