Hi Reader,

A few years ago, I worked with a leadership team at a Series C software company.

On paper, they were perfectly aligned. Strategic plans were approved unanimously. Everyone nodded in meetings. Decisions passed without friction.

And yet nothing moved.

Projects stalled, timelines slipped, and initiatives that everyone had "agreed to" kept getting quietly deprioritized. The CEO was baffled. How could a team that agreed on everything execute on nothing?

When we dug in, we found the problem: They had compliance, not alignment.

People were saying yes because it was easier than raising concerns. Objections lived in hallway conversations rather than in meetings. The problem was that they were optimizing for a low-conflict culture.

But conflict holds wisdom.

When someone pushes back, they're seeing something you're not. They're in a different seat, with a different vantage point, holding a piece of the puzzle you don't have access to.

And connecting to that conflict is one of the most efficient and powerful things you can do as a leader.

Pillar Four: Alignment accelerates everything

Alignment is not the same thing as agreement.

Agreement looks like nodding heads and unanimous votes. It often masks unspoken concerns and quiet resistance.

Alignment is deeper. It's built by exploring objections together and genuinely understanding what each person cares about. When people feel heard, they take ownership. And when they take ownership, they're actually bought in.

I helped that Series C company implement a simple shift. Before any major decision, the CEO started asking: "What, if anything, speaks against this?"

At first, it was uncomfortable. Concerns surfaced that had been brewing for months. But when objections were brought up and dealt with, rather than avoided, people started to own the outcomes. They weren't just agreeing to a plan, they were building it together. Something big began to shift.

Before this, people would say “Our target is $50M” and everyone would nod.

Now, once they were asked “What speaks against this?” they responded with things like:

• “How are we going to double the leads in our pipeline?”
• “How do we get to the decision-maker quicker?”
• “How is our operations team going to handle that many new on-boardings?”

And since the team had to wrestle with those questions during the planning phase, they were ready for them when they began to execute. More importantly, they saw the vision, their objections had been handled, so they could buy in.

Within six months, execution speed was no longer an issue. Real alignment had been created.

This is the last pillar in our series.

Thanks for following along. We'll be going back to regular leadership newsletters twice a month after this. I'll see you then.

Big Love,

Joe