From Theory to Practice: The Align By Design Method

I'm excited to kick off a series of posts about our process and framework at Align By Design. Our objectives are twofold:

1. To document our processes, as writing them down helps clarify our thinking.
2. To help future clients, team members, and partners better understand our work.

First, a bit of context: At ABD, we help build alignment within companies. We believe that alignment leads to clarity of thought, frees up mental bandwidth, reduces the think-say-do gap, minimizes friction between teams and individuals, and ensures that growth doesn't rely on heroism. Aligned teams and organizations become more resilient, and work becomes more meaningful for everyone involved. Ultimately, more aligned teams mean more people living meaningful lives and experiencing joy.

Mission 1024: Our goal is to help 1024 teams achieve alignment by the end of this decade. This will happen by sharing our knowledge and encouraging more people to join us in this mission. Our book, which encapsulates our Dilemmas Resolution Framework (DRF), and these posts are steps towards achieving this goal.

We work on two types of projects:

1. Alignment Building
2. Ongoing Alignment Support

Alignment Building Projects: In these projects, we help teams articulate their way of working, the values that govern their actions and behaviors, and align on the why (their purpose), who (their hiring philosophy), and how (their decision-making and behaviors).

Our approach is based on the premise that no one intentionally sabotages their workplace. When faced with a choice between a good and a bad option, everyone is clear. However, dilemmas arise when choosing between two equally good options. In the absence of a clearly articulated organizational style, people default to what has worked for them in the past. This isn’t a big issue in small teams with few leadership levels but becomes challenging as teams grow. Thus, much of our work is with companies in the scaling-up phase.

Our Alignment Building projects focus on helping leaders resolve dilemmas their teams face daily and articulate the 'way of life' that will serve their business aspirations. The outcome is leaders becoming aware of the think-say-do gap in their organization and agreeing on how they want things to be run moving forward. Sirisha Bhamidipati and I have encapsulated the Dilemmas Resolution Framework in our book, "Hope is Not a Strategy ".

Ongoing Alignment Support Projects: These projects ensure that alignment isn’t just theoretical but translates into real, on-the-ground impact. How often have we seen offsite meetings dedicated to building collaboration, only for things to revert to the old norm once regular work resumes?

At Align By Design, we are driven by the desire to see tangible impacts from our work. Alignment that exists only in theory but isn’t reflected in actions is distressing for us. We've all seen expensive consultants deliver great reports with no real change. We don't want to be those consultants. We don't want to standardize our approach to a checklist.

We have a repeatable framework for delivering our Alignment Building projects, enabling us to scale. We are committed to delivering value through our Ongoing Alignment Support projects and are continuously figuring out how to scale these efforts effectively.

In the upcoming posts, I’ll share more about how and why we do what we do. Stay tuned!