Alignment The Multiplier for Team Performance with Lindsay Uittenbogaard Mirror Mirror - OrgDev Episode

Why does progress feel harder than it should, even when everyone’s working flat out? Why do good teams struggle to have the right conversations, make clear decisions, or follow through effectively?

In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we explore the invisible drag on performance: team misalignment. When people act on different assumptions, even the most committed teams end up stuck in confusion, slow decisions and fractured collaboration.

It’s not about effort – it’s about shared understanding. And alignment is what cuts through the fog. But alignment doesn’t just happen.

That’s why we’re joined by Lindsay Uittenbogaard, Founder of Mirror Mirror and a leading expert on team alignment, to discuss:

What alignment really means (beyond just agreement)
Why misalignment is often overlooked
How to make alignment a standard part of how teams work

If you’re leading change, running teams or supporting strategy delivery – this episode is for you

Go to the Mirror Mirror website:
https://mirrormirroralignment.com/

Follow Lindsay and Mirror Mirror on Substack:
https://mirrormirroralignment.substac...

Become a Mirror Mirror Practitioner:
https://mirrormirroralignment.com/get...

Wish you had a handy recap of the episode? So did we.

That’s why each week in our Next Step to Better newsletter, we’re sharing From Pod to Practice – a 2-page visual summary of each episode designed to help you take the learning from the podcast and into your work.

You’ll get:
■ Key insights from the episode
■ A reflection prompt
■ A suggested action

Sign up now to get From Pod to Practice delivered to your inbox each week: https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch/

About Us

We’re Dani and Garin – Organisation Development (OD) practitioners who help leaders and people professionals tackle the messiness of organisational life. We focus on building leadership capability, strengthening team effectiveness, and designing practical, systemic development programmes that help you deliver on your team and organisational goals. We also offer coaching to support individual growth and change.

Find out more at www.distinction.live

We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:
linkedin.com/in/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch

Transcript

(00:00) Hi, welcome to the org dev podcast. So, why does progress feel harder than it should in many organizations, even when everyone's working flat out? Why is it so difficult to get to the heart of the real issues in your team or across your organization? In this episode of the Org Dev podcast, we're talking about the invisible drag on performance, misalignment.
(00:22) When people act on different assumptions, even the most committed teams and organizations get stuck in confusion, slow decisions, and fractured collaboration. And it's not about a lack of effort. It's often about a lack of shared understanding. And alignment is what cuts through the fog. However, alignment doesn't just happen, which is why we've invited a really leading expert on alignment, Lindsay Alton Bogard.
(00:45) Lindsay is founder and innovation lead at Mirror Mirror. Mirror Mirror is a diagnostic that identifies and measures alignment gaps between people in teams. It does this to service the common ground and differences, providing insights that can be used in facilitated sessions to close the gaps. Before founding Mirror Mirror, Lindsay built a rich and varied career in communications, innovation, and change, which is a brilliant founding for this.
(01:06) And she started out launching the UK's first national car sharing agency for students. They wanted to lead internal and strategic communications for major global organizations like Shell and T systems. And along the way, she's developed deep expertise in aligning people around purpose and strategy. Her work consistently centers on enabling clarity, connection, and collaboration, foundations that would later shape the creation of Mirror Mirror.
(01:29) And she lives in the Netherlands with her husband and two daughters. So, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us on a sunny Friday afternoon, [Music] Lindsay. Oh, we're really excited to have you with us, Lindsay. So, just to kick us off, just tell us a bit about the work you're doing, and we'll we'll unpack that as we go.
(01:50) So as you said I'm working uh with a team in a company called Mirror Mirror and I mean I suppose the summary is that we basically see alignment in and between teams as a process and what we do is we give teams uh and leaders the capability to run alignment as a process as an ongoing process. Uh we've been doing this for about nine years now.
(02:09) We're on our eighth evolution of the diagnostic. We've learned a lot of lessons. We've worked with teams around the world and so I suppose the the work really involves feeling our way forward because it's a really exciting new field and when we're delivering to clients and when we're seeing different situations, you know, we're looking for patterns, we're looking for constant improvements, we're building community, building practitioner relationships, curating research, continuing to iterate uh what we do. So, it's all about spinning
(02:37) multiple plates and and then really pushing it out there. Lovely. And alignment is a word that gets used a lot. It's all over the place. How do you describe team alignment? What's the definition from from your perspective? No, that's a really good point to start with actually because I think uh traditionally alignment is seen as connecting the parts of an organization, connecting the strategy, the the promise, the brand, the the the goals through the organization.
(03:01) And of course that's really important. Um, but when we talk about team alignment, and we're choosing our words very carefully here, we're talking about how teams of people relate the strategy in the brand and the parts to their work and how they relate to each other in that. Um, and the reason why this is all of a sudden problematic, uh, and it won't be news to a lot of people who are familiar of course with DEI and everything else, but if you've got everybody and their different perspectives and you've got the decisions they need to make and the
(03:30) actions they need to take and the behaviors that they're exhibiting, um, the challenge is actually how can a team and how can teams of think, act, and work better together given that mix. Um, and so I I just want to get on to a little bit more about defining the word. Um, because I think sometimes people confuse alignment with agreement.
(03:51) And it's it's not necessarily that at all, there is an important nuance. And what we found in the research is that while teams do need to have an agreement per se on what the strategy means. So that's their context. What where are we? And where they do need to have agreement on what are we going to do about that together out on the other side.
(04:10) out of all of these signals and information and the context that they're in, they need to be, I suppose typically, you would say, on the same page, but they need to be working in a way that's unified. The bit in the middle, the perspectives and opinions, they don't have to agree with each other.
(04:25) Um, and and that's one of the things I really picked up about culture in the Netherlands years ago when I first got here, is that it's okay to have a different point of view. You don't have to go into a meeting thinking well I'm I need to persuade them or oh no I'm going to be persuaded. Um it's all about let's just share and learn from each other and see what sits but we have to agree on what we're doing together so we don't have to have the same point of view.
(04:50) So um that's one thing about alignment and agreement and about the relationship between the two. Um but the second thing is that people tend to talk about alignment as you know are we aligned? Well, nobody's it's a moving target. Of course, one team member changes. Um, a day passes, you know, things change all the time and um it's it is about that processing the incoming information and and getting to the outgoing as an ongoing thing.
(05:16) Um, so it's about discovering where are we misaligned. I mean, we just don't have time to sit sit around in meetings kind of saying, you know, do we think the same thing on this? Do we think the same thing on that? You know, where is the misalignment? Some of them crop up to the surface. It's very clear actually we're talking about different things here.
(05:36) What do you mean by X? Um and some of that can be detailed or it can be extremely crucial to the work of the team. Um but it's about really fasttracking the discovery process. Where are we misaligned? How do we deal with those? And what are we going to do about it day by day? And where does misalignment come? Because all teams want to be aligned.
(05:54) It's you know the aspiration we want to be aligned. where what are the root causes of some of the misalignment from your so I mean I've already talked about perceptions being unique and so they should be the last thing that we want is this complete agreement which is not alignment it's just group think of course um but perceptions are unique I mean even from one day to the next we talk to leaders who say but I've told them what the strategy is why do they you know and I and I would have told them again and I and I used the same words and why I use
(06:20) different words but from one day to the next people's biases shape what they understand to be what they want it to be and what they're hoping it to be. So whereas some leader might be talking about um customer responsiveness and one person thinks great finally we're going to get into quality.
(06:36) We're going to make sure that it happens properly and another person is saying oh what they mean is about we need to get things through the door quickly. We need to get a reactive time response time going here and they'll they'll interpret it to what they really want it to be. And that's totally human and it's totally natural and we shouldn't try to fight that.
(06:53) But it's well how do we balance this? So that's the first bit. Perceptions are unique. The second thing is that it's obvious but you know in today's world of complexity there's just too much going on. Misunderstandings happen because we just cannot get onto the same page by simply having a briefing going into a meeting.
(07:13) Uh I mean remote working as we all know. I mean there's huge amounts of gaps there or misalignment in that. Uh and then the third thing is you know we align through language. We develop mental models and we develop our constructs of reality through language. Language is imperfect. So knowingly or unknowingly um misunderstandings happen um as people are just hearing the same words to mean different things um interpreting things um because different words are are are used differently in different situations.
(07:45) you know, jargon, ambiguity, digression, bad signals on WhatsApp, anything can make a misalignment happen. Oh, I missed the word not is a classic one, of course, in um you know, oh, we aren't oh, we're not doing that. Right. Right. Okay. Um and but the fourth one, I think, is because of capabilities and conditions. It's a very it it is actually a capability for people to share perspectives with each other in a clean way and manage their emotions in that process or manage the way that their their brain might be arguing with them about well you know
(08:17) rejecting what they're saying. coming up with questions to to argue against them before they've even finished to be able to ask questions that are clean if you like and and free from bias of your own perspective instead of well why why don't you think it's like this instead of well what kind of XY Z are you talking about to understand somebody's perspective but the conditions when I talk about that you know do we have an opportunity to stop and think and people will together and and and people will rebel against that of course we've huge
(08:49) pressure to move forward. But unless there are the safe conditions for people to share perspectives and learn from each other and just align in a rapid way, those conditions just we just don't have the opportunity. So there's a lot of reasons why um unprocessed differences, if you like, um get carried into decisions and actions and as soon as that happens, you've got conflicting directions going on.
(09:14) um decisions and actions that conflict, things that are actually then manifesting into the organization as work in action that is causing problems as it happens um that people will then have to pick up on. Oh, you know, rework um undoing work, paying for something else, getting unexpected results, the manifestation of these misalignments between people, hugely costly, um if that's phrase.
(09:39) Um so that's how misalignment happens and how it kind of you know pervades an organization. Yeah. So I was going to ask do people understand that the need to talk more about alignment? Is there an appetite for this in organizations? I've been waiting for the answer to that question for years actually because for for me it's like oh my god this is a communications um opportunity because communication people are trying to have shared meaning for effective organizations and coming from an organizational communication sort of um
(10:07) experience background there um I've been struggling to find out why isn't anybody jumping on on this sort of years ago and a lot of communicators of course it's about the the the scope for it in terms of well if it's about dialogue and it's about teams it's not a communication piece that's for OD O OE it's for uh you know leaders it's for you know it's almost for everybody else um but it's really important however I'm delighted to say that in 2024 so last year the highest trending search term above team effectiveness team dynamics and team
(10:46) performance was team alignment Um, and so that's really nice to hear because then there's a language around what this is. People have been using coherence because alignment sounds like agreement. You know, what are we calling this? There was a um there was an alignment course at SE University I think in 2019 that actually changed its name to organizational effectiveness because it wasn't resonating.
(11:14) So I but I think we found the language now and there's appetite for the topic according to that language according to those search term trends which is fantastic but there's always been a appetite for alignment. I mean even a employment contract is a way of trying to align people around what are we agreeing on here as a as a next step.
(11:35) alignment is obviously connected to productivity and performance engagement and um staff retention of staff as a result. How frustrating is it when it's misaligned? How frustrating is it when everybody sees things are disconnected? Fragmentation from the pandemic I think perpetuated an appetite for finding out about how can we connect better together.
(11:58) Connection doesn't seem to be a word that's still sort of associated with technology. But I think increasingly because of the complexity in in organizations and the unpredictability of the environments that we work in, alignment is now seen to be crucial for adaptivity and resilience. How can a team adapt? Well, it needs to know where is it, where are we at, and what are we going to do on a on an iterative basis? That's the basis of adaptivity.
(12:24) So when we talk about or adaptability, when we talk about appetite for alignment, it's almost like there's this sort of like what do what's this people problem? We wouldn't use those words. What's this people problem that we're perceiving? It's so difficult. We're pushing stuff uphill. It's all so difficult. People are leaving.
(12:41) Everybody wants to be a freelancer. You know, who's going to stay in the game? How how are they really working at home? This kind of coasting kind of presenteeism issue. People are struggling with that. How do we get on top of that? And I think it's not like there's a silver bullet, but that but alignment is a big contributor to that.
(13:00) Who's going to be engaged if they're not first aligned, etc. So, the gains are significant. Um, but it's difficult to describe again. It's like a sliding doors moment. What would have happened if we had continued on our trajectory and not had that meeting where we confirmed that actually that connection meant this, not that? what would have happened if we had not had the dis the the opportunity to understand more clearly what the strategy was before we went down a particular track for six entire months so the gains are significant in terms of
(13:33) you know as I said productivity and um uh engagement and profitability performance sustainability um and I think the appetite is always been there for that it's about how are we seeing that how is our what's our mental model on that and I think it's really coming through Now, I think it's really important because there are so many terms in organizational life that we throw around but we don't define clearly enough.
(13:59) It's almost like with Eskimos having different definitions of snow, there's different types of alignment, aren't there? Um, I think I've heard you talk about sort of strategic alignment and cognitive behavioral alignment. So, it it is quite important, isn't it, for us to define even then that we're still aligned and what our definition of alignment is and to give it a little bit more color in our pallet, don't we? Absolutely.
(14:20) I mean we have sort of we define it in four key domains. So there is the strategic alignment piece um that's that's very prevalent today. There's stakeholder alignment which is also very common commonly used and commonly understood. There's cultural alignment which is about how do what are the capab it is about capabilities about the extent to which people have dialogic capability to to relate to each other the extent to which they have psychological safety to be able to express what they say in the condition in the right conditions do they have the
(14:53) emotional development to be able to participate in a mature way in a conversation that has dissonance present so there's the cultural alignment piece but I think what brings it all together for us is this fourth piece which is about alignment in action. So supposing you've got the culture, you've got the stakeholders and you've got the strategy, then you've got to implement it and ultimately alignment is about effective implementation.
(15:14) So the alignment in action would be cross team collaboration. It would be about um being able to implement um to plan as a as a team and make decisions uh in order to to to utilize those those discussions about what are we going to do. Okay, let's make decisions so that we then commit to it.
(15:35) So there's the four parts of alignment as we see it, but lots of people are tackling in this in different ways um as you can imagine. So I could go through some of those. Yeah. Well, I guess one of the things is it is that you've taken on quite a a fish foe in terms of like what you're trying to battle against because there's all sorts of things that come into play like group dynamics.
(15:55) We've all seen the meeting where like the manager says, "Is everyone in agreement?" Everyone says, "Yes, we are." and they walk away and then they have the conversation afterwards going I'm not in that at all. And so I think I think I've heard you talk about uh false consensus bias where we kind of like we we kind of almost agree our way into believing that we've agreed something but we haven't really.
(16:14) So what what are your methods for actually understanding where we because often we don't know if how aligned we are until after the fact when we all produce something that's actually quite different or nothing at all. So, so this is where and that's a really good point because a lot of a lot of times people get a bit frustrated about alignment because it seems like a sort of like side issue in the middle of a business conversation and in a business conversation there's always not enough time let's face it to properly sort of
(16:41) round things out. So there's this sort of pressure to move on and it's like oh by the way what do you mean by that? like, "Oh god, you know, and um or does is everybody ag Does everybody agree? Right, we've really got to go now. Does every It's a brave person that does that, isn't it?" Uh, no.
(17:03) And I don't quite understand what I'm talking about. Or it's an annoying person because that's not the time. We like to see that alignment is a topic in its own right and has should have a session in its own right. um because that's the focus of the discussion rather than it being like oh the focus of the discussion is to move on out of here with some actions and by the way we have to be aligned on that as well.
(17:26) What's alignment by the way? Who knows how to do that? Should we try and sort it out in the conversation? That's a complete non-starter. So the alignment process that we're talking about goes into the meeting to say all right we've analyzed the differences between us according to this tool that we're using and we can see that there are five key gaps that make a huge difference to the way that we're going to work.
(17:47) What we're going to do is we're going to go around the table and not interrupt each other. It's a bit of Nancy Klein's time to think. You've heard of Nancy Klein? Absolutely. um going to just spend a couple of minutes each and this is a skill sharing our perception not on who's to blame about problems or what happened in the past and why but about where we are now and how this affects us going forward.
(18:08) So let's say the topic is we're clear on our roles and responsibilities and let's say the the the results of that poll around how we perceive that as to be an effective part of the team are very low. So everybody's either thinking it's very ineffective or they just all have different opinions. They're all misaligned.
(18:27) So somebody will have an opportunity finally to say okay I feel that um we're missing X Y and Zed in the team uh and you know we all know about that but the impact it's having is this. So I'd say it was quite urgent. Somebody might say I'm new here so I'm going to pass on this so I'll pass the next person. Fine no problem.
(18:45) But there's a perspective sharing and a perspective seeking round where people literally get that piece. Remember, you don't have to agree with everybody and everybody can have their own opinions and that doesn't mean anything. Alignment means actually understanding collectively where are we now and what are we going to do next.
(19:04) So supposing you go around the room, you might have heard it all before, but it's pretty like that there'll be some shifts in thinking because the brain is looking to to piece together fragments of information that milling around into a mental model to help things make sense to me.
(19:23) And when they hear something useful, then it'll be like, oh, and there's that shift. Now, the shift could either be massive like, but I thought you said that team were doing this project. Oh no, they stopped last year. Oh, that could be make a huge difference to your work. Or I thought you meant urgent was next week. No, no, no.
(19:41) Urgent is summer. Oh right. So it's not all about misunderstandings of words. It's actually about information and knowledge and strategic context and behaviors um that all come into this mix of signals and inputs into the brain. But anyway, you've been around this sort of perception loop, sharing loop. And then a facilitator, anybody could be trained to do this, ideally a sort of trained facilitator or coach, but can say, "Okay, having heard what you've heard, is there anything that's shifted for you that either you want to share or just
(20:12) think about?" Because people don't want to say, "Oh, I didn't know that or I thought that was wrong." You know, you don't want to put people on the spot. That's not the point. But you can then say, well, given all of that, what are the logical next steps that we as a single unit of a team need to take next? And there aren't that many.
(20:30) There's only about nine of them um in in categories of find more information, involve more people and and move it forward another way or start, stop, continue, do something different, make a decision within the team. And it depends what's in the team sphere of influence and what's out of it. But that's it's not you can get then deeply into a discussion where you can identify actually there are subtopics that we need to go around the room on or maybe we do need to actually just discuss this. Sometimes it's about people just
(20:58) articulating something and getting it off their chest. Maybe they actually want to come to a session like this to say actually there's a point in the meeting I wasn't able to raise. I'll bring that into the next sort of um alignment session or whatever they want to call it. But if you if you then are it's obvious then well we need to get more information or it's obvious well actually only two of us need to take this forward with so and so from that team will take that action or actually this isn't as important as we thought it
(21:25) was let's just park. So it's being really clear about what do we need to talk about and what do we think on that rather than just not doing it at all which is basically what's going on. So that's that's what I call so so that's our take on it and as I said other people are doing it differently but yeah well I think what's really refreshing about it as well is that it's not an indulgent long lengthy exercise it's something that can happen in the flow of work aren't it um and that's important I think even as we're having this
(21:56) conversation there are meeting thousands of meetings happening across across Europe right now where misunderstandings are being built leading to duplication of effort and missed deadline so there's quite a hard edge to this isn't there there is going to be a fundamental impact on the organization's bottom line and particularly when organizations are striving to be lean and to be um efficient as well.
(22:16) This can actually put more resource back into the organization, can't it? I think, you know, the first time a team would do this, they would probably have some resistance and they'd probably be thinking, you know, I can't say that or they might be thinking, you know, I've heard that all before. And as they were even listening to somebody, they might be thinking, oh, here they go on their soap box, they keep talking about this.
(22:36) No, but at least you get the opportunity to have it said and hear someone and maybe empathize with a reason behind their thinking that you didn't really understand before. That simple act of going around the room to share and seek perspectives and then they they call it coordinating perspectives which is how do we then what what do we make of that in terms of our next steps? It doesn't it is quite streamlined.
(23:01) You could probably do one or two key misalignment, key gaps or insights, whatever you want to call them. You could go around one of those in half an hour. Maybe one of them goes on for two hours, but at least it's done if it's really important. But the impacts are colossal because if you start thinking about, well, tell you what, let's just not do that and I'm going to have my view on what you think or I'm not going to know what you think and we're going to go forward as a team on shared objectives.
(23:29) I mean in a way it's you know I think this is why when we picked up this chalice which is a difficult one it's a slippery you know what's alignment and how do we sense our way forward in this field which has by the way got a ton of connected interdicciplinary research behind it this is why I can't put it down or why none of our team can because it's just like oh my god this is so powerful and so needed it's and that when we talk about the capability it's the capability for somebody to be trained to facilitate that session it which isn't huge. There
(24:03) are high level advanced facilitators that would need to be present in in in like executive team level um that that you know there's different levels of that. But then we talk about the learning and the knowledge. So there's probably about five key documents around what's alignment, how does it work, how does the brain work, what's the process etc.
(24:25) that that is a learning program that can that we're working on being a sort of um on demand uh piece by piece tutorial thing that some people can pick up online. But then there's the tooling. So there's the tooling on how do you actually identify the alignment gaps which is a diagnostic but then there's the what do you do between teams when when different functions and silos do need to have their boundaries and silos is a very negative word but they do need to be channeled otherwise everything's everywhere and you know what the hell's going on but they do have the
(24:53) connections between them and it's those missed connections between team that adds a lot of value um at the moment it's like well I think the problem is this and we should have them do that properly and Well, I'll ask so and so if they can get on top of that. Oh, well, they were away and oh, well, I did send them an email, but you know what it's like. It's just slippery as hell.
(25:12) I mean, trying to get trying to get Okay, the problem is that this information is not going to that team quick enough. The teams know that leaders can't see it. So, let's get that specifically organized and specifically dealt with so that you can measure. Well, there were um 10 things that came up between five teams who ran the alignment process last month and five of them have been resolved.
(25:35) What's the impact of this on business performance? What's the impact on this on how people feel at work in terms of how they are bringing themselves to own their work? What's the impact on um how much how many possibilities arise? So you can call it innovation but how many possibilities would arise from ah well if you think that and and they're doing this and actually I heard about this recent what about and it's all of those let's do this next that's better and we all know about surfacing options but I mean how can you surf surface options if people
(26:07) are seeing things from different perspectives and are not coming together on that so like I said there's work around this has been done all the time and I think what we're doing is just making it really streamlined, really simple, and really clear. This is what alignment is. This is what it's not. And this is where it helps a lot.
(26:27) Um, and you know, that's a capability that can be passed over to teams who I think can save a lot of time, money, and aggravation. And you get right into the heart of the culture as well, because there's some organizational cultures that um are deliberately set up to be ambiguous because then we can't be blamed for something.
(26:45) uh you know it's part of the human condition isn't it which is well them over there they're always working and I guess you're kind of surfacing it in a way which is like trying to get people to like you said take ownership and therefore there will be some form of potential not not resistance but just like self-p protection almost isn't there so you you're this is a culture shift in many respects isn't it you know we we do have we do call call a kind of purposeful misalignment the dark side of alignment if you like because there is a fine line
(27:14) between what is actually things that people should not know like they shouldn't know that we are going to be we're looking at merging because it's there's legislation around or they shouldn't maybe maybe certain people in teams shouldn't know that somebody knows they're about to move on because it causes it da it's a bit destabilizing without something in its place.
(27:39) So there are there are kind of innocent and uh if you like legitimate to use for one of a better word reasons why things can be ambiguous but there's a lot of really other selfish people going around in organizations. Remember in the couple of decades ago it used to be information hoarders before technology it was like people would hoard information they'd be valuable because of it.
(28:00) That's just ridiculous now isn't it? It's just like you can get anything online and no we don't do that anymore. I think the same would be for um purposeful misalignment. You know, I don't I don't want to tell them that I'm working on this because I want to get the credit for. I mean, it's just like really I mean I suppose it is a bit of a culture shift, but I think everybody's ready for it.
(28:22) We have we got shared goals or not. Are we doing this or not? Are you in or not? this and and the permission for people to be using misalignment as a for their own political gain if you like is something that organizations don't have to tolerate. So yeah, I keep talking about permission about how things can be rather than how things are.
(28:42) You're probably right. It's a culture shift. So you said up front that mirror mirror has been around nine years and you're kind of on the eighth iteration of the the diagnostic. What does that look like now? What what would what would people see if they were using it? Oh yeah. So, so essentially we're asking people questions about their own team effectiveness, not the effectiveness of themselves, but their team.
(29:01) And we instead of reporting on everybody's individual results. It was always anonymous, but now what we do is we just show two scores. So, one score is what's the average score for that effectiveness rating. So, oh, you know, it's it's 64%. Fantastic. Don't have to look at it. But then we show the alignment score which is a a formula based on entropy around the extent to which those there's variations in the responses and they could say and that could be 19%.
(29:28) So we have that lot of people saying well something's really everyone's completely misaligned that something is either good or bad or in between. So so that gives us a a very easy priority rating or a team what we call it team perception indicator which is it's red and green. So, if it's green, um, they're both above 60%.
(29:50) It's it's effective and people are aligned, fantastic. Let's not spend any time talking about it. If there's one score below 40%, then what's going on there? But then again, is it a priority for them to be discussing that? We can't discuss everything. Let's pick the top ones. Everything in between is is an amber.
(30:08) We also take a lot of verbating comments on when we ask people to say whether the team understands something like what is their top priority. We asked them to name what is their top priority and because the team reports are only relevant between five and 20 people because fewer than five and you can't really compare the responses and more than 20 is just beyond usefulness.
(30:29) You can actually read down the um verbatim comments that are that are jumbled up by the way so you can't spot who said what in the order that they come in. um you can easily see well they think they're aligned or they think that they know the priority so they could write they could rate that as effective and aligned then you got to check that it is the priority according to the team leader or whoever else is working with the team um or on values as well what are their values so it covers that holds a whole load of components in around strategic alignment stakeholder
(31:03) alignment cultural alignment alignment in action and the cultural alignment piece is effectively a readout, as I've said before, of the maturity of the team to process alignment. So, the coach will not go to a team and go right into conflict and say, "Okay, you guys say that you're not psychologically safe.
(31:23) Is that cuz of the leader?" You know, there's not going to be any of that. Um because we want to work with what is the team ready to deal with um that can make a difference to them at that time. let's accept what their current reality is and move it forward. And like I said, the way that they'll take take that report, it's only it's not a results.
(31:45) We're not telling them that it's uh it's not a report that gives them anything other than a reflection of where they are, which is why it's called mirror mirror, of course, but they can take that reflection, which is a very specific results to say, okay, how are we going to prioritize that? How are we going to then compare perspectives on that? How are we going to let everyone have their points of view and let everyone adjust their points of view or not? And then what are we going to do about it? Um and that report um comes in a summary form.
(32:13) We've got rankings so that you can see very quickly well the top five low fives. Um and we have two versions. one for teams with a high sphere of influence like executive teams and one for regular teams who have a um some of mostly in in inside their teams a sphere of influence and some external influence too.
(32:35) So I'm really proud of it actually and um in the future I can imagine people having an app where they see they can select which which which indicators which which insights do they want to talk about and then they can be thinking about how would I summarize my take on that? how would I you know what do I what do I think of that and and then they can bring themselves to work. Yeah.
(32:56) And I think that meeting meeting teams where they are is really important and not kind of running before they can walk because there are some foundational practices a team I guess needs to be comfortable working through. Do you find the leaders who is it is it leader driven kind of the people who come to do this is there kind of an enlightened leader who's like okay I'm willing to open up this sort of discussion with my team.
(33:19) So, so it is either leaders who are just I guess you would find I don't know if you've heard of leader X and leader Y but you know leader Y is the more curious upto-date they don't take it as a personal offense if the team is misaligned they take it as a responsibility to create the conditions for the team to align so that it's more likely and if the if they're if they're backed up by their organization who see that that giving team leaders the means to align is something positive as opposed to something that they will be judged by which I'd say leader of X.
(33:48) Then um we're looking at leaders who don't feel they're being judged. They're curious. They've got a reason to do this and they've spotted fragmentation and they've been wanting to find something that deals with it. They haven't found it yet because simply being aware of diversity doesn't tackle business problems that are subject to diverse um difficulties through diversity.
(34:13) and simply knowing what your personality is is helpful, but it doesn't tackle the issues caused by problems with differences in personality etc etc. So they've been wanting to find out why why is my organization how can I connect this team properly and how can I empower them without kind of everybody losing track of things so they're curious and they are open to new ideas.
(34:38) Hi we're just pausing this interview for a moment. Have you ever finished an episode of the org dev podcast and wish you had a cheat sheet that summarizes all of the key points? Us, too? So, we made one. It's called From Pod to Practice. And each week in our newsletter will share a two-page summary of the latest org dev episode.
(34:56) And it includes key takeaways, a reflection prompt, and one small action you can try. And it's all in a digital format with space at the end to add your own notes and reflections. And it's designed to help you take the learning from the podcast into your day-to-day work. So to get your copy, just sign up to our next step to better newsletter, the links in the show notes, or you can visit our website at www.distinction.
(35:16) live to get the latest from pod to practice in your inbox. And let us know what you think. We'd love to get your feedback. You've uh had a fascinating career today and what's been brilliant is you've kind of iterated your idea and developed over time. What was your journey into the field? How did you sort of discover that alignment was a a lifetime of learning and application for you? So it was really I I think that I'm just this I'm I'm the kind of person that if I like to develop new ideas and if I think of something I I won't let it
(35:45) go. So I'm there in this multinational organization looking at the whole and and I'm a bit of a conceptual thinker. So I'm looking at the whole organization just thinking well of course you'd have your achievement goal of one quarter% EBIT D achieved for the year through all of these employees if they were better connected and were actually sharing meaning properly together because everyone's everywhere and and but yet everybody's walking around confidently with pieces of paper just you know if they're in the know as far as they're
(36:16) concerned they're fine with it and everyone else can go and pick it up as they get along. And it just felt like the organizations that I started working for didn't make sense and that it was me and and I was the problem and what do I you know why why didn't I understand how to feel comfortable in these these these organizations and then the more I talked to people and the more I got into it the more I realized that actually they feel that too.
(36:43) It's really chaotic and they're struggling to understand why decisions are made, but yet they have to buy into them and it's a communication challenge, but communications is really at the bottom of the pile, isn't it? because it's just about PR basically and writing work copy text and you know thanks very much sort of for for for being a for so being there so I can delegate my responsibility to communicate and and then going into another organization and finding exactly the same thing and then getting into a leadership team uh position in an
(37:10) organization responsible for communications and finding that they're not really interested and just been just this journey started years ago I mean consistently thinking but it does make sense isn't it? And and unraveling it and then continue to and then I guess if you believe something and you're you you know you're you're you're there's there's actually some research that says if you're going against your values at work is bad for your health and so okay it's bad for my health because I feel like I'm being challenged but I kind of
(37:42) like the challenge too and I like the discovery um and there's no way I can just go and be that rather than this. So that's how I got into it and I started um I quit at one point actually and um took a big leap when my friend said that and I was like yeah but I have to to earn money and yeah you'll be all right you know you've and I had invested some money in a house so I was like yeah okay I've got that and um I started working with the university of uh the technical university here in Delft and had an intern looking at all of the existing
(38:14) research around alignment and working with the uh Rotterdam school of management on uh teams there who were being piloted around this and um set up the business and I thought yeah I just need to be you know get it going within six months we'll be fine and of course it has turned into a longer journey but it is going and it is moving and the more it moves the more energy you get from it and the more you talk to people so that's how I basically got into it and still am into it and and as you've gone further and further into it what what
(38:44) you and you've read so much extensive research and and you I can sense things like social construction ructionism in there and all sorts of different sort of disciplines being melled in. What's some of the research that's really made you go oh my god that is really surprising or that's like oh my god.
(38:58) So that's that's that's how alignment doesn't work or does work. Well we've we've developed what we call a map. I'm happy to send it out to anybody but a map of a theory of alignment that goes through various points on and through how do people become misaligned and then how do they become aligned again and all of the research behind that.
(39:18) And it really started years ago when um somebody who's now a professor of uh communication uh Johan Severs who used to who I used to work with in the energy industry pointed out that dialogue is about shared meaning. it's between people. And I know that sounds really simple, but I was just like, of course it is.
(39:37) You know, it's not about them or, you know, or me. It's it's about what are we understanding together and then based on that the whole mental models research about how we create mental models, but how that's built up. So for example in 88 um there was research about the fact that mental models exist to reduce cognitive load and then they actually essential says Vik in 1995 for interpreting complex and ambiguous situations because otherwise the human brain cannot move because it cannot it has to make a judgment about what to do
(40:13) next. It it can't just go blindly otherwise it's the equivalent of walking off a cliff without knowing if there's a a step ladder there. Um, and so the way that the brain works in having to make assumptions and the idea that assumptions are bad is is incorrect to start with. Assumptions serve a purpose. They're just risky.
(40:34) And how much time have you got to take to check them out? I personally cannot stand going back to say, I've seen something in the news. I think I'll check out whether that's right. I'd rather just not watch the news these days. But um you know actually taking making an assumption and taking a risk on that assumption based on what you know and your existing mental model about the way that the world is is really fascinating.
(40:56) And then all of these confirmation biases about um wanting to shape your mental model in a way that suits you because it's more comfortable and how the human brain is completely not suited to the way that we're in the working world today. and but how we need to work with that in order to be able to manage the challenges of today and manage artificial in um intelligence because ultimately we're running the show at this moment uh on that.
(41:27) So, you know, things like fundamental attribution er error, the fact that people are interpreting behaviors of people. Oh, well, they'd say that cuz that's what they're like. You know, there's so many ways to become misaligned in today's world and how hopelessly inequipped we are as individuals to do that, but as how clever and how amazing we are collectively to make sense of things and take action.
(41:53) Look at how quickly it took us to respond to the pandemic, you know. Oh my god, there's a virus out there. It could kill us all and we haven't got anything to solve it. Just within few months, 24 months, yeah, there's a vi vaccine out there. Let's all get vaccinated and back we go. Even though it's a new normal, we can do amazing things.
(42:12) So there's this vulnerability of humans and then there's this power of of the future and and how we want to shape that for ourselves that absolutely depends on alignment. Otherwise, we're stuck in the drudge of oh, did you get that email and all those ridiculously hopelessly boring things that get in our way that that can undermine all of our good work and possibilities.
(42:35) So, I mean, that entire thing is just fascinating. All of the research behind them. Yeah, you you're putting lots of uh new colors in there because it's very easy to go through the through your life thinking assumptions bad, bias bad, slack fix everything. Doesn't work that way, does it? Well, the very idea that that, you know, I tell you what, let's put in a collaboration tool into our organization and it'll sort everything out, which it does help people exchange information, but it doesn't help people at line because you can't put context to it, ask
(43:09) questions on it. You know, dialogue is the only way dial there is no other way than dialogue. So, the challenge is how can we make it streamlined? How can we make it effective? How can we get good at that? And it's not difficult. How can we make like how do you make it sexy to a manager going, "Look, this is really good. This is really useful.
(43:28) This isn't, you know, this isn't naval gazing at all, is it?" I know. So, I won't put push the point, but imagine if you're on Zoom call because you can do this on Zoom as well. And you've got 12 people there. They've been through the alignment process. They know how it works and they've read the five documents or watch the five videos or whatever. It took them half a day.
(43:43) So, they're in a session and somebody's saying, "Okay, but um this this is alignment session and uh we've got this new challenge at work. Do we all understand the same thing by that challenge that was emailed to us on Friday?" Well, let's go around the room and share our perspective. So, we as a team do this and and so you think that no, no, no.
(44:04) I no, we're not going to argue with each other. We're going to ask questions. We're going to let it sit. We're going to trust the process. Our brains are processing this overnight, all the time, constantly. just put the information in there, wait for a day, and come back to it. Not that that's the solution to everything, but it's like, well, we now know about this question.
(44:22) We need we need that clarification. Oh, well, we immediately need to connect with X with so and so. So that, you know, that Zoom session, people can probably come out of that if they know how to participate in it feeling really a bit better about it. So that's the I think I think it's quite sexy and it's that key, isn't it? people knowing how to participate in that that sort of thing and giving giving people a new way of of of dialogue of talking to each other a new way of dialogue.
(44:47) So if you could give every team just one habit to improve alignment, would that be it or would there be No, I think that would just drown again. That would be another one of those things that sort of, you know, it doesn't cut it through. I think I think they just have to spend half day where, you know, going through to understand how does alignment work? How would I participate in it? How can I observe my emotions as I as I feel frustrated or challenged or energized as other people are talking? and how can I be okay with not being agreed with or
(45:17) not agreeing with other people and that sort of skill you can't just take a piece of it I don't think I think you just have to say that's it's a thing and you do it or you don't what do you enjoy most about the work that you do first I just think it's the discovery I mean it it can be really uncomfortable when you when you suddenly realize after six years of work your idea of who your market was is completely different they still don't know what you're talking about um But I think seeing the progress and seeing that this really could be
(45:46) something that um helps organizations and their impact um and and coordinating that sort of plays to my strengths. I really enjoy that bit of the job. And what's on the on the flip side? What do you find most challenging? I find fractional remote teaming very challenging. So, and we are having to, you know, drink our own medicine all the time.
(46:13) And even only last week, I was asking I was asking Sam, "But what do you mean by campaigns?" And we had this totally different idea that had been tripping us up for weeks on that. It's like, "I've got to keep asking questions. I've got to keep asking questions." And the more remote and the more you are, the more questions that you have to ask.
(46:32) And and sometimes that's really difficult because it's like gosh, resources are precious in a in a in a in a business where you're pioneering something. So it's frustrating to think that you might have been tripping yourself up with your own stuff. And if you look back over your career so far, what would you say one of the biggest lessons you've learned that you take forward in the work you do now? When you've climbed the mountain, there's another one.
(46:54) And you always want to think, oh, it's just this mountain, but it's not. I think lot there's a really interesting um series on YouTube called the big think and there's a guy called I think it's Brian uh class who talks about complexity and chaos but he frames it up in that we have control over nothing and influence over everything and so the fact that we're all interweave interwoven in this severely chaotic scheme of events with sliding doors all over the place it it's just so much is about luck.
(47:30) So, you just got to go for it in the end. I think that's what I've learned personally. And then professionally, what I've learned is that engagement and ownership and commitment aren't requests that can be made of people. They they're consequences of meaning that is shared between people that has uh has has traction in the their real world.
(47:52) You know, it's about the connection between their personal and professional purpose with this organization. It's about what they're prepared to give based on what they'll get in return. And it's about the balance between being led and being enabled. So, it's not as if you can say, you know, you need to go and engage your staff or you need to go and, you know, we need your commitment.
(48:13) Well, it it's a dance between everybody. So, it's that thing again about this betweenness that's that I think is really interesting. Brilliant. um you're always focusing on new research and that as well. How do you invest in your own learning and development? I think it's all sort of informal on the job stuff if you like because then when I'm speaking to people and I'm bringing speakers into our practitioner community um somebody coming in called Jackie Lefer on on values pretty soon I'm interviewing I'm talking to her about what she's going to
(48:42) talk about. That's really fascinating. So there's on the job learning and then there's purposeful okay I need to go and ask about that because I need to know more about that. So it's proactive as well. But I I'm just everybody has their own learning styles. I find it quite difficult to read.
(48:58) I just I like to interact. So it's just ongoing interactions and and just is is a is learning and when I do get to read a book sometime it's like oh god that's so right. Oh that's so right. And I just you know can hardly put it down. There are a few books like that as well. Are there any particular books you'd recommend to to the people listening that that have shaped you or really struck you? Uh well the art of dialogue which is from 99 I think um William Isaacs is just essential.
(49:24) I quite like the the five dysfunctions of a team by Lencion particularly because it it's deceiving that people can think that we are that sort of thing when we're we're really quite not. Um and I like the style of writing and think we're going to be writing a book and putting one out at the end of the year.
(49:42) It will be a story a little bit the same. There's a but but this YouTube I watch a lot actually Dave Snowden's got something on complexity with Nora Bateson and that that channel the big things dots about loads of topics but it gives people an opportunity to answer questions in as much detail as you want and you realize how much people can know and be how how much insight insight people have got when they really just get a chance to unpack in a in a in a nonrushed way responses It's really difficult questions. It gives you a lot of hope.
(50:17) And one of the original missions of this podcast is to inspire the next generation of organization development and design practitioners, whether you're internal and external. It looks like alignment isn't going away. What advice would you give to someone who's just starting out on their career now? Well, I suppose there's because there are different ways of doing it.
(50:39) It would be to always look out for alignment as a as a hook and as a lever in your work, whether that's through how people are behaving or what other frameworks there could be out there to help with it or what misalignment even looks like and how to interact with organizations about that problem. So I would just advise on sort of constant curiosity and looking out for stuff and happy to share any of the work that we've done that can help people as well.
(51:07) Well, I want to say a huge thank you, Lindsay. This is absolutely fascinating. It feels like you're doing important work. This is the kind of stuff that can shift the GDP of nations, I think. Oh, well, I think, you know, if thanks for being interested and it's it's it's like it's everybody who's who's picking up on it and who's opening up to it um and who's part of it.
(51:31) So, um thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it. Brilliant. Um, and Danny, what are you taking away from today's conversation? Oh, lots. I think it's been really interesting. So, I was I was really struck with the thing we talked about at the beginning around the difference between alignment and agreement and people really understanding the difference between those things.
(51:46) I liked what you talked about the link between alignment and adaptability and resilience and how important that is for organizations and the importance of language and language really matters and the words we use and and the importance of dialogue. Yeah. And I really agree on all this one. Um, and the and the thing that I'm going to take away from this, which I think it's so obvious, like, you know, like some of the theories, but when you see it, it's just so g is alignment is a moving target. This isn't this holy grail.
(52:09) We're aligned. That's it. We're done. Like everything shifts and constantly. So, we have to tend to it all of the time. So, it's been absolutely brilliant. Um, if people want to follow your work, um, as preparation for this week, your website's got loads of resources on it, lots of papers on there.
(52:27) Um, you're very active on LinkedIn as well. What's the best way for people to follow your work and if they're interested in learning more about mirror mirror and the brilliant tool um what's the best way for people to contact you? So our website mirror mirroralignment.com is the best way. Um but we do put a lot of effort into our substack posts in a channel called the alignment lens.
(52:46) So a lot of our latest thinking and and latest research we we put through into articles there. But happy to hear from anybody who who wants to find out more. Brilliant. And that substack is really good. I read it in depth and there's loads of really good stuff. Really thoughtprovoking as well. If you want to be provoked, go to the Substack and there's loads of papers on the on the Mirror Mirror website as well. So, thank you so much.
(53:04) Um, yeah, it's been brilliant. All of the links that you shared today are going to be in our show notes. So, if you are really interested, just go to the show notes below. And if you know someone who is in a misaligned organization and is showing all the signs of being an overwhelmed manager who just can't quite get people together to focus on the same thing, then please do reach out and also feel free to share this video with others as well who you think will find it useful as well.
(53:29) We get so many shares each week from people who've watched it and gone this is really useful. So please share it with colleagues and they'll find it really useful as well. But most important thank you so much Lindsay for making time for this. We really appreciate and thank you joining us all the way from Holland today. Thank you Danny and thank you Garen.
(53:42) It's been it's been lovely to speak to you. [Music]