The Alignment snapshot

The ALIGN Framework

Part 6B of the ALIGN Series: The Alignment Snapshot, Final Post of the Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff, connecting strategy, culture and execution My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted.

At this moment, many organizations are navigating competing demands, shifting expectations, and increasing complexity in their operating environment. Whether these conditions feel like opportunity, challenge, or both, an organization’s ability to respond effectively depends on how aligned it is.

Alignment is a set of observable conditions that allow an organization to move with coherence and purpose.

An aligned organization demonstrates the following:

• Leadership agrees on priorities and maintains a shared focus

• Staff understand the direction of the organization and have input into matters that affect their work

• Resources are allocated in ways that reflect stated priorities

• People have the capacity to deliver on expectations and are supported in building new capabilities as demands evolve

• Communication flows in both directions, with space for questions, concerns, and feedback

• Decision-making is clear and predictable

• The culture supports people in doing their best work

• There is a shared understanding of what success looks like and a commitment to that success.

When these conditions are present, effort translates into progress. Strategy flows into  execution. Culture supports the work at hand. People understand how their contributions connect to the organization’s goals.

The Work Wise Studio Alignment Snapshot is a short diagnostic designed to help you assess these conditions. It offers a practical way to take stock of where alignment is strong and where it may need attention.

If you are curious about your organization’s alignment, I invite you to complete the Alignment Snapshot. I will provide you with your results with tips on how to improve alignment. I also offer a complementary twenty-minute conversation to walk you through your results and answer your questions. Sometimes simply naming what is present, with an objective partner, creates clarity. We can explore additional supports and how they could strengthen focus, effectiveness, and results.

In the spirit of the Studio Practice, the Alignment snapshot helps you study what is working, surface what needs attention, and decide what to craft next.

ALIGN as a Möbius Strip: The Rhythm of Continuous Alignment

The ALIGN FRamework Part 6A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

This post in the ALIGN series reflects on the framework as a whole and the rhythm it is designed to support.

My premise is this: In most organizations, conditions, priorities, and people are constantly evolving. Alignment, therefore, is not a fixed state to achieve and preserve. It is an active practice that requires ongoing attention. The ALIGN framework was created for this reality. It helps organizations move through change with coherence and curiosity, keeping leaders and staff connected to what matters most as circumstances shift.

The Five Phases of ALIGN

Each phase of ALIGN carries a distinct focus and a guiding question. Together, they form a rhythm that moves from awareness to sustained effectiveness, building momentum as the organization learns, adapts and grows.

Absorb

Core Focus: Pay attention to what is really happening

Key Question: What is the experience of our stakeholders, including customers, staff, vendors, and shareholders, relative to a specific issue or current state?

Legitimize

Core Focus: Turn insight into shared understanding

Key Question: What matters most for us right now?

Integrate

Core Focus: Translate direction into action

Key Question: How do we turn our priorities into daily work?

Grow

Core Focus: Expand capacity and confidence

Key Question: What resources and capabilities do we need to meet the demands of our work?

Nurture

Core Focus: Sustain progress and attention

Key Question: How do we maintain focus long enough to achieve meaningful results?

These phases are not steps to complete and move past. They are patterns to return to. Each phase informs the next, and over time, the work naturally loops back to the beginning.

The Möbius Strip as a Symbol of Alignment

At first glance, ALIGN can appear to be a linear process with a clear start and finish. In practice, it behaves very differently. It functions more like a Möbius strip, continuous, fluid, and without a clear dividing line between beginning and end. The Möbius strip offers a way to see alignment as continuous rather than linear, where reflection and action constantly shape one another.

A Möbius strip is a simple loop with a twist. It has only one surface and one edge. When you trace your finger along it, you never cross a boundary. You simply return to where you started, seeing it from a new perspective.

That is what alignment feels like when it is working well. Awareness becomes direction. Direction becomes practice. Practice becomes learning. Learning brings you back to awareness, wiser and more attuned to what the organization needs next.

Inside Becomes Outside, Outside Becomes Inside

A Möbius strip blurs the boundary between inner and outer. What appears internal continuously becomes external, and what begins outside loops back in. The same dynamic is at work in organizations.

Signals from the marketplace, customer needs, expectations, frustrations, and responses inform what the organization must prioritize, design, and deliver. At the same time, what happens inside the organization, leadership values, trust, clarity of direction, and ways of working shapes how those products and services are conceived and carried out.

Culture, communication, and coherence inside the organization show up directly in the experience customers, clients, and partners have on the outside. In turn, how the marketplace responds feeds back into leadership priorities and organizational focus.

Alignment lives in this continuous exchange between the organization and the world it serves. It is an internal practice with external impact. When priorities, decisions, and ways of working are coherent inside the organization, that coherence shows up in how customers, clients, and partners experience it.

The Flow of Ongoing Work

ALIGN is not a project to complete. It is a practice to sustain. It replaces the idea of change as an event with a more grounded understanding that change is constant, and alignment is what allows organizations to move through it effectively.

Each turn through Absorb, Legitimize, Integrate, Grow, and Nurture represents a cycle of learning. With each pass, leaders and teams become more skilled at noticing what matters, making informed decisions, and adjusting with intention. Over time, ALIGN builds the organizational muscle required to pursue strategic goals without losing coherence or momentum.

The Discipline of Returning

The end of one cycle naturally becomes the beginning of the next. Leaders who consistently return to listening, reflection, and inquiry keep alignment alive. They create cultures where attention is sustained and adaptation feels normal rather than disruptive.

ALIGN supports a shared practice of noticing, deciding, learning, and adjusting together. This rhythm allows organizations to respond to change without losing their footing or their sense of purpose.

Closing Reflection

Alignment is a dynamic relationship between people, priorities, and purpose. Like a Möbius strip, it holds continuity and change in the same motion.

When alignment is treated as a shared leadership practice, adjustment becomes a matter of refinement rather than overhaul. Each cycle through ALIGN deepens understanding. Each return strengthens trust. Each conversation renews commitment to the work the organization exists to accomplish.

In practice: organizational reviews, reflection cycles, culture stewardship sessions, and leadership check-ins that keep attention focused and momentum grounded.

Nurture: Build the Habit of Ongoing Stewardship

Nurture: Part 5B of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

In the Nurture phase of the ALIGN framework, the work is about sustaining momentum once priorities are in motion. Momentum is sustained when practices are embedded into daily operations and supported with consistent attention and resources over time.

Nurture focuses on leadership stewardship. It is where leaders stay present to the work, ensure resources remain aligned, review progress against expectations, and make deliberate adjustments as conditions change. Rather than assuming momentum will sustain itself, this phase recognizes that results are achieved when focus is maintained and accountability remains active.

In this stage, leaders are reinforcing what matters, checking whether efforts are producing the intended outcomes, and intervening early when progress begins to drift. Nurture is how organizations protect the investment they have already made and ensure that alignment continues to serve performance, effectiveness, and results.

Make Reflection Routine

After the launch of any initiative, schedule a regular cadence for check-ins that invite conversations. In addition to the typical statistics of time, budget and risks/mitigation,  ask open ended question to further understand how things are going.

·         What’s working as intended?

·         What surprised us?

·         What is going better than expected?

·         What feels harder than it should?

·         Does anything feel out of sync with our expectations?

·         Are we noticing any new opportunities?

 These conversations can begin with a project team and continue with staff  once an initiative transfers over to regular operations. They can also be conversations among the management team, and then taken to staff for further exploration

Ideally, the conversation flows in both directions, with leaders and staff sharing their experience and perceptions from their roles.

Group Problem Solving

Encourage staff to surface emerging issues, not just successes.

When leaders say they don’t want anyone to come to them unless they have a solution, they are increasing the risk that they will not hear about problems because people don’t have the information they need to solve the problem.

Some people are really good at spotting problems and need other people to identify the solutions. By discussing challenges, problems, obstacles (what ever word you want to use), it allows the team to utilize the collective team strengths.

Coaching Conversations

In the Nurture stage, it is important to stay connected to the development plans established during the Grow phase. Growth does not end once new skills are introduced; it requires continued attention and reinforcement. Whether someone is a leader, manager, or front-line staff member, people need ongoing support to build and sustain the capacity their role requires.

At its core, coaching is about learning from experience. It helps identify what is working and should be strengthened, and what is not working and should be adjusted. When pressure increases and demands pile up, the temptation is often to abandon developmental work in order to focus on immediate problems. While understandable, this short-term focus can prevent people from developing the skills and judgment that would reduce those recurring “fires” over time.

There will also be moments when people are putting in significant effort without seeing the progress they expected. In these situations, leadership plays a critical role. Acknowledging effort matters, but it is equally important to shift the conversation toward what has been learned through that effort. If progress remains limited and learning is not occurring, those conditions provide valuable information. They signal the need to revisit initial assumptions, reassess the approach, and consider what might need to change.

One-on-one coaching conversations are especially effective in supporting this kind of learning and performance improvement. They create space for reflection, honest feedback, and problem-solving in a way that is difficult to achieve in staff meetings or project team settings. Over time, these focused conversations help people build confidence, capability, and resilience, reinforcing the alignment the organization is working to sustain.

Celebrate Success

Momentum thrives when recognition is built into the feedback look . People need to see that their efforts matter.

Create visible ways to share stories of progress: short internal updates, dashboards that track meaningful indicators, or brief showcases where teams present what they’ve learned. When success is named and shared, it naturally reinforces alignment.

Sustain Focus on What Matters

Nurture is the ongoing work of staying with priorities as conditions evolve and ensuring that focus, resources, and accountability remain aligned with the outcomes the organization is trying to achieve.

Over time, pressures shift, new demands emerge, and assumptions made early in the work may no longer hold. Ongoing stewardship means leaders regularly stepping back to assess whether the work is still delivering the results it was designed to produce and whether adjustments are needed to keep it effective.

When this kind of review becomes routine, momentum grows and is sustained through leadership attention, clear accountability, and a willingness to make timely course corrections. In this way, Nurture ensures that progress continues  because it remains important.

Nurture in Practice

In practice: reflective team huddles, quarterly alignment reviews, recognition rituals, coaching check-ins, storytelling sessions, and leader reflection prompts that keep the purpose visible.

Nurture: The Discipline of Sustained Focus

Nurture: Part 5A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

Have you ever felt that a new initiative was finally gaining momentum, only to have direction shift again as attention moved to the next pressing priority?

Nurture is the phase of the ALIGN framework where leaders take responsibility for maintaining focus, allocating resources, evaluating progress against expectations, and making deliberate adjustments to stay on course.

From Launch to Longevity

Once a program or initiative is launched, attention often shifts to what comes next. Resources get reallocated, the project team move on, and what once felt urgent begins to fade into the background.

Alignment is an active state that requires sustained attention. Once a project or initiative is implemented, it can take months or even years for practices to be fully adopted. Many organizations underestimate this ongoing need for focus and support. Without continued attention, early gains can stall before they are fully realized.

Without that attention, small gaps widen. Gains slow. Momentum fades. What began as a promising new approach risks becoming another short-lived effort remembered only for its kickoff meeting.

Nurturing alignment means maintaining focus and checking, over time, whether practices are still serving the purpose they were designed to advance.

Embed What Matters

Nurture is the stage where leaders work to embed priorities into the operating culture of the organization. Evidence of this shows up in what is discussed, what is reinforced, and what becomes part of the regular flow of work.

Leaders can ask themselves:
Where is this priority showing up in how we plan, meet, and make decisions?
What signals reinforce that it still matters?
What systems or incentives might be pulling us in a different direction?

Embedding a practice into the work stream  happens through repetition, reinforcement, and visible leadership commitment. When leaders keep naming what matters and model it consistently, alignment becomes self-sustaining.

Manage Resources

Intentionally letting go of activities, products, or services is a strategic act of stewardship. It creates capacity for what matters now and recognizes that time, energy, and budget are finite. By making clear choices about where resources are invested, leaders signal that priorities are real and that focus is being directed toward what will most advance the organization’s success.

Review Progress and Adjust Intentionally

Nurture requires leaders to regularly evaluate whether expectations are being met. This means reviewing progress against intended outcomes and making adjustments when results fall short or conditions change.

An initiative can be technically successful and still miss its mark. A system may work as designed while creating unintended consequences for staff or for customers, clients, or partners. This is where leaders stay connected to the people closest to the work, examine real outcomes, and make thoughtful course corrections so effort remains aligned with the organization’s purpose.

Nurture in Practice

Nurture is the discipline that sustains the alignment built through the earlier stages of ALIGN in service of organizational effectiveness. It is where leadership presence, accountability, and culture converge to steward focus and follow-through over time.

In practice: progress reviews tied to outcomes, leadership accountability for resourcing priorities, and deliberate decisions about what continues, what evolves, and what stops.

GROW: Build Capacity Through Intentional Support

GROW: Part 4B of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

Do you feel like the  demand for innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness creates ongoing pressure for people in an organization to stretch and grow?  Successful organizations understand that growth requires providing the right support at the right time.

In Part 4A of the ALIGN Series, we explored how growth is sustained through reflection, feedback, and learning. Part 4B turns toward the practice of supporting growth and the concrete actions leaders can take so individuals and teams build confidence, strengthen their skills, and create momentum.

People want to do good work. They want to feel competent, capable, and successful. The fastest way to accelerate progress is to ask people what they need to be successful in their roles. When individuals have agency in shaping their development plan and can see how it strengthens their own career trajectory, they engage more readily in the work ahead.

What People Need to Grow: A Menu of Supports

Support can take many forms. Depending on the person, the team, and the task, it may involve skills, structure, capacity, confidence, or clarity.

Below is a menu of options with questions to guide conversations about what people need to be successful. Taking a cue from the Work Wise Studio tagline, Study what works. Craft what’s next, it helps to begin by identifying what is already working well before deciding what needs to change.

By starting with what is already working, leaders help people feel grounded as they step into something new. Recognizing strengths provides solid footing, builds confidence, and eases anxiety, making it easier for individuals and teams to engage in growth and innovation.

Skill and Knowledge Support

Key questions to guide reflection:

• Where do I feel most confident and capable in my work?

• Where would strengthening my skills or knowledge make my work more effective?

Support options:

• Targeted training or skill-building workshops

• Job shadowing or guided practice with a mentor

• Access to subject-matter experts

• Learning modules or curated resources

• Practice labs or simulations

• Additional time to build proficiency before expectations rise

When people feel supported to grow their skills, they participate more fully and with more ease.

Structural and Workflow Support

Key questions to guide reflection:

• What systems or processes facilitate my workflow?

• What systems or processes make my work harder than it needs to be?

Support options:

• Clearer workflows or decision paths

• Streamlined processes that remove friction

• Updated tools or technology

• Redefined roles or expectations

• Cross-functional clarity to reduce bottlenecks

Clearly defined roles and processes free up time and energy to focus on priorities.  

Capacity and Workload Support

Key questions to guide reflection:

• Do I realistically have the time and space to take on additional work?

• What could be paused, reassigned, or adjusted to make success possible?

Support options:

• Pausing or stopping lower-priority tasks

• Redistributing work across the team

• Temporary relief from nonessential duties

• Additional staffing or contractor support during heavy periods

• Reprioritization conversations with leadership

Capacity support protects people from burnout and increases the likelihood that new expectations can be met well.

Confidence and Coaching Support

Key questions to guide reflection:

• Where do I feel confident and skillful?

• What kind of support would help me navigate challenges with more confidence?

• Support options:

• One-on-one coaching

• Strengths-based development conversations

• Peer learning circles or buddy systems

• Leadership modeling vulnerability and learning

Confidence grows when people have  trusted spaces to test ideas, name concerns, and see their progress over time.

Clarity and Communication Support

Key questions to guide reflection:

• Where am I very clear about the purpose and expectations of this work?

• What information or communication would help me move forward more effectively?

Support options:

• Revisit and clarify goals and success measures

• Timely updates on shifts or decisions

• Opportunities to ask questions and test assumptions

• Cross-functional communication to align expectations

Clarity reduces friction and ensures effort is focused in the right direction.

Putting It All Together

Ensuring effective support options are visible and accessible across the organization is a powerful alignment strategy.

Growth takes root when people feel supported. When leaders offer a thoughtful range of support and invite people to identify what they need most, they create the conditions for sustained progress.

When people have the skills, structure, capacity, confidence, and clarity they need, both they and the organization grow.

In practice: coaching, mentoring, leadership development, peer learning circles, skill-building workshops, and feedback systems that reinforce alignment and growth.

Grow: Strengthen Capacity Through Learning and FeedbackPart

GROW: Part 4A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I am introducing each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

Congratulations!  You have launched your project, initiative or task. Now the hard work begins!  Once priorities have been translated into action, the next step is to strengthen the people and systems that carry the work forward. Grow, the  fourth phase in the ALIGN framework is Grow, is where leaders, teams and individual contributors build capacity, confidence, and resilience.

From Implementation to Strengthen

Once a new approach (or project or initiative)  is implemented, real learning begins.  Even with strong foresight, risk assessments, and mitigation measures,  it is impossible to predict exactly how something new will impact individuals or the system.  Having a growth mindset is key to successfully navigating those impacts.

Growth happens when learning is continuous, not episodic. Organizations that treat learning as continuous, not episodic find they are more easily  more responsive to shifts in the system.  They notice signals such as employee experience, customer feedback, performance data, and everyday observations, to adjust and strengthen the ecosystem.

When teams reflect together on what they are learning, they begin to see themselves as co-owners of improvement, not just executors of a plan.

Growth Is a Leadership Practice

Leaders play a critical role in shaping the learning culture. By modeling curiosity, asking reflective questions, and signaling that adaptation is part of the work, they will create the conditions where learning is expected, supported, and safe.

It is also important to recognize that growth takes time, and that people need room to build confidence as they develop new capabilities. When leaders normalize learning, teams are better able to experiment, share insight, and adjust the course.

Strengths Based Growth

When an organization decides to do something differently, or entirely new, the success of that decision depends on people’s ability to adapt, learn, and lead. That means investing in development intentionally across all levels of the organization.  Depending on the situation,  the leader may need support as much as the front line staff.

As a Gallup Strengths coach, there is the expression, “everyone needs a coach”. People at any job level benefit from coaching on how to maximize their strengths and calibrate their performance to be most effective. No one, and I mean no one, likes to feel incompetent in their job and that is a big reason why people resist change.  Individual coaching gives people the space to explore how to use their unique strengths to succeed, and to identify where they need additional support.

It is far more impactful to ask people to share where they have confidence in their abilities and where they think they may need additional support than it is to dictate a prescribed training program.  When people can exercise their own agency over their development, they are more likely to rise to challenges.   Additional supports like skill building, reassignment of work to other less impacted people, or stopping some work are all positive responses to growth.  In our next post Grow Part B, we will provide a menu of support options individuals and teams can review and prioritize for the support they want to receive.

Make time for Skill Building

Innovation may require  an entirely new skill set.  It takes time to learn something new and to develop a level of proficiency and comfort. That amount of time is often underestimated, and performance expectations are not realistic.  It is important to  calibrate any expectations to the reality of what it takes to develop those skills, and creating an ongoing cycle of feedback helps make that calibration possible.

Normalize Feedback

Feedback can feel uncomfortable for any of us. No one wants to hear they aren’t doing a good job, or that something is not working. The key is to make feedback part of ongoing operations, and to set the expectation that we can talk about what is working and as well as what is not working without it being seen as a penalty.

To make feedback a source of growth, leaders can:

·         Be open to publicly receiving feedback themselves

·         Gather  insights while experiences are fresh.

·         Provide balanced feedback with what is working as well as what is not working.

·         Acknowledge efforts and attitudes that are helping the situation

·         Keep feedback psychologically safe with a focus on learning, not blame.

·         Close the loop by sharing  what was heard, what will be done with it, and why.

·         Use feedback to refine systems, not just individual performance.

When people see that their feedback shapes real decisions, it increases their comfort with the change, and they tend to engage more deeply and take greater ownership for outcomes.

Balance Stretch and Sustainability

Growth requires care. People can’t grow indefinitely without renewal. An organization that’s always stretching without recovering eventually burns out its talent and dulls its creative edge.

Leaders can balance stretch and sustainability by:
• Building moments for review and recalibration into the work rhythm.
• Recognizing and celebrating progress to reinforce energy.
• Adjusting workloads to match developmental readiness.
• Encouraging self-reflection so people can see their own growth over time.

Sustainable progress depends as much on rest and reflection as it does on effort and ambition.

From Change Project to Learning Culture

The goal of this stage in the ALIGN Framework is to make growth habitual. When growing becomes part of how the organization operates, change naturally occurs.  Growth is how alignment deepens. It’s where progress becomes self-sustaining because people have the tools, trust, and confidence to keep learning.

In practice: coaching, mentoring, leadership development, peer learning circles, skill-building workshops, and feedback systems that reinforce alignment and growth.

Integrate: Turning Priorities into Practice

Part 3B of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I am introducing each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

Direction only matters if it becomes visible in action. Integrate is the phase where alignment turns from intention into implementation, where leadership priorities become the practices, systems, and behaviors of daily work.

From Mandate to Meaning

You, as leader, have just handed your team a set of priorities and a clear direction. You expect movement, alignment, and progress.

Or, you are one of the managers or staff who will carry that work forward, and are now asking yourself, “Now what?” as you must translate leadership intent into the daily realities of workflow, capacity, constraints, and competing commitments.

This handoff, the space between leadership direction and operational reality, is where many brilliant ideas falter. Integrate, the third phase of the ALIGN framework, exists to close that gap by turning alignment into shared design so implementation succeeds.

Integration is the phase where leaders, managers, and staff work together to figure out how priorities will become real in the day to day.

Integration begins when there is a shared understanding about the larger goals and purpose of any intended work.

As you move into planning, take time to create shared understanding by discussing these questions:

• What are these priorities really trying to achieve
• How do these priorities connect to the work already in motion
• What assumptions are we making about time, capacity, and impact
• What does success look like
• What is at stake if we get this right or wrong
• Who will be impacted, and are these people at the table as we design how this will work

Integration begins when people understand not just what to do, but why it matters. That shared meaning gives purpose to the process work that follows.

Name What Is Not Working

In the effort to build a positive culture, organizations can unintentionally shut down feedback that would genuinely help them improve. People often hesitate to name what is not working because they worry they will be seen as negative or not a team player. The belief that “if you cannot say anything nice, do not say it” may sound polite, but it discourages the honest insights that make innovation possible.

To counter this, I take teams through what I call an Exercise in Negativity.

For a brief, intentional period, we suspend the pressure to stay positive and simply name what feels frustrating about a process, workflow, or system.

• What slows things down
• What gets in the way
• What makes the work harder than it needs to be
• What bugs you about how things currently operate

People tend to have a lot to say, and we capture everything without judgment.

Then we shift. We return to each item and ask, “If this were different, what would better look like?” or “If it were entirely up to you, how would you design this?” Again, people have a lot to say.

When we make space for legitimate concerns, the conversation moves naturally from venting to designing. Real engagement happens when people can name what is not working and then help shape what could be better.

Involve the People Closest to the Work

As you move from discussion to design, bring in the people who will live with the changes, not only those who manage them.

If a new system, process, or structure will affect someone’s daily work, that person should have a voice in shaping how it happens.

Even the process of identifying who is impacted reveals important information. You may discover a downstream team or support role whose work is not well understood and who has not been included in prior conversations. Or you may notice that certain people were inadvertently left out of a process altogether, even though they should have been involved. Look for these gaps intentionally. Ask, “Who else touches this?” and bring those perspectives in early.

When people help shape what is coming, they begin adapting before the change even launches. They shift from skepticism to contribution.

Think in Systems, Not Silos

Every initiative interacts with what already exists. Before diving in, trace the connections.

• Where will this initiative create friction
• Who will it help, and who might it disrupt
• What can we simplify or stop to create capacity for success

When people understand how the moving parts fit together, they stop feeling like cogs and start thinking like designers of improvement.

As you map these connections, widen the lens beyond internal workflows. Every internal decision eventually becomes an external experience for a customer, client, patient, or partner. A process that seems efficient for the organization may unintentionally create frustration or extra work for the people it serves.

Integration is an opportunity to ask, “How will this change feel to the people who rely on us?” When teams hold both the internal and external experience in view, they design solutions that strengthen the organization and improve the experience of those it exists to serve.

Lead with Curiosity and Clarity

As work unfolds, keep curiosity active.

• What is working as intended
• What is not
• What surprises are emerging

Create regular check-ins that are not about reporting, but about reflection. Ask what people are learning, what they need, and what should evolve. Visible reflection creates a culture of continuous improvement rather than blame.

Integration in Practice

Integration is where strategy meets creativity, and where progress meets patience. It is where leaders, managers, and staff turn priorities into progress through curiosity, candor, and care.

In practice, Integration can include:

• process mapping
• cross-functional design sessions
• the Exercise in Negativity
• rapid-cycle pilots
• adaptive planning
• improvement huddles that turn insight into action

Integration turns priorities into progress by engaging people to align intention, design, and daily action.

Integrate: From Shared Understanding to Shared Practice

Part 3A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

In this series of posts, I am introducing each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff. My premise is simple: when leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight, and when staff is engaged early to shape the details, those ideas are far more likely to be adopted. Staff feel valued, heard, and involved. It is a win win for the organization.

Direction only matters if it becomes visible in action. Integrate is the phase where alignment turns from intention into implementation, where leadership priorities become the practices, systems, and behaviors of daily work.

From Meaning to Movement

By this point, leaders have absorbed what is happening and clarified shared priorities. Now the work shifts from deciding what matters to figuring out how it will happen.

Integration is where direction meets design. This is where leaders and staff work together to translate purpose into plans, and plans into practice.

At this stage, success depends on authentic involvement. People need to see themselves in what is being created. If an initiative will materially affect how someone does their work, that person or someone who represents their perspective should be part of shaping it.

Change often fails not because people resist it, but because they were never part of building it. When people are included in the design, they are more likely to trust the intent, understand the rationale, and commit to the outcome.

Design for Involvement, Not Announcement

Many organizations prefer to unveil new initiatives once they are fully designed. It feels efficient and controlled, but it often backfires. When change is presented as a finished product, staff experience it as something done to them, not with them.

Involve people early, especially those who will carry the work forward:

• Build on what already works.

• Ask what challenges people see in the current approach and how they would improve it.

• Invite their practical wisdom and lived experience.

When people help design what is coming, they start adapting before the change is even launched. They move from skepticism to contribution.

Setting the Stage for Success

Integration asks for both precision and participation. Before moving to execution, take time to clarify:

• Requirements: What must be in place for success?

• Assumptions: What are we taking for granted, and have we tested those assumptions?

• Risks: What could go wrong, and how will we mitigate it?

These questions help leaders balance confidence with humility, acknowledging what is known while staying open to what will be learned.

Integration is also where the first signs of real change appear, and that can be uncomfortable. New approaches can unsettle habits, roles, and identities. The goal is not to eliminate discomfort but to create an environment where people feel free to express concerns, ask questions, and contribute ideas for making the change work.

Integration in Action

Integration is the bridge between leadership and staff. It is where shared direction becomes collective movement. This is the point in ALIGN where leaders:

• Involve those most affected by the change in shaping how it happens.

• Translate high-level priorities into specific actions and accountabilities.

• Balance clarity about the goal with flexibility in how to reach it.

Integration becomes real through practice. It takes shape in facilitated team sessions where people design the work together, in design sprints and pilots that test ideas before full rollout, in adaptive planning workshops that refine the path forward, and in systems and structures that are redesigned to support new ways of working. These activities create the conditions for learning, iteration, and shared ownership.

Ultimately, integration is where brilliant ideas meet the realities of daily work. It is where alignment becomes visible, where trust and strategy meet in the rhythm of everyday work, and where people begin to see their contributions shaping what comes next. When leaders and staff move together in this way, implementation becomes not only possible but sustainable.

ALIGN Leaders, Engage Staff

ALIGN: Mid-Series Reflection

In recent posts I have introduced the ALIGN framework, a practical structure to help leaders and teams stay connected, responsive, and focused on what matters most. ALIGN is designed for the real world of organizational life, where change is constant and clarity can be in short supply.

The framework outlines five practices that help leaders and staff move from reaction to reflection, and from reflection to coordinated action:

Absorb — paying attention to what is really happening.
The pause that powers progress.

Legitimize — turning insight into shared understanding.
Where reflection turns into direction.

Integrate — translating direction into action.
When clarity meets design.

Grow — expanding capacity and confidence.
Learning becomes leverage.

Nurture — sustaining alignment as conditions evolve.
Keeping purpose and practice connected.

The first two stages, Absorb and Legitimize, focus primarily on leadership, as meaningful staff engagement cannot take hold until leaders share a grounded understanding of what is happening and a clear commitment to what matters most.

Why Alignment Comes First

The challenge for today’s leaders isn’t recognizing that change is happening. It’s keeping people aligned as it unfolds. When leadership is not fully aligned, everyone feels it. Competing priorities, battles over resources, mixed messages, and sudden shifts in direction ripple across an organization in quiet but powerful ways.

Staff notice. They start to hold back, waiting for leadership to “figure it out.” Energy turns into hesitation. Initiative becomes self-protection.

We all want to contribute. We all want to make a difference. When people disengage, it is rarely because they don’t care. More often, it is because experience has taught them to lower their expectations. They have seen priorities shift without explanation or watched decisions get reversed without context. They have learned that speaking up may not shape the outcome.

ALIGN is designed to interrupt that pattern.

ALIGN vs. Change Management

Traditional change management is often built around a specific project or initiative. It treats change as something that happens in phases, with a clear beginning and end.

ALIGN works differently. It recognizes that change is constant, not an event to manage but a condition to navigate. Instead of focusing on process and compliance, ALIGN focuses on shared understanding and engagement. It provides a steady rhythm for how leaders and teams absorb information, make meaning together, and turn insight into coordinated action.

ALIGN builds the organizational muscle that makes adaptation a normal part of work. Instead of waiting for a “change initiative,” leaders and teams can adjust in real time, confident that they know how to listen, clarify, and move forward together.

A Different Rhythm

Some leaders intuitively move through the practices of ALIGN, even if they do not name them. For others, the sequence does not come as naturally. Under pressure, the instinct is often to move quickly, fix, decide, act and move on.

The irony is that moving fast too early can derail progress. When decisions are made before leaders reach shared clarity and commitment, the result is confusion, rework, and frustration. A decision made quickly without alignment often costs more time, money, and morale than it saves.

ALIGN offers a different rhythm. It encourages leaders to pause long enough to absorb what is happening, clarify what matters, and legitimize the priorities that will guide action. It is not about slowing down for the sake of it. It is about moving deliberately so that progress is built on understanding, not assumption.

The Payoff of Alignment

When leaders take time to align with each other first, staff can engage more confidently and contribute more fully. ALIGN is not about adding process. It is about creating a reliable rhythm of listening, clarifying, and acting so that people across the organization can see how their efforts contribute to shared success.

Trying to engage staff when leadership is not aligned is an exercise in frustration for everyone involved. Leadership alignment does not guarantee engagement, but it is required for authentic engagement to take hold.

When leaders share clarity of purpose, communication becomes easier, decisions gain traction, and people feel safe contributing their best ideas. The payoff is not just smoother execution. It is a culture where energy moves in the same direction, and progress feels both possible and shared.

Up Next, Intgrate

With a foundation in Absorb and Legitimize, in the next post we will explore Integrate, the practice where leaders and staff work together to design how priorities turn into action.

build a culture that prioritizes

Part 2B of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

This post is part of the ALIGN Series, where I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff so organizations can move forward with clarity and confidence.

When leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight. When staff are engaged early to shape the details, those ideas take root. People feel valued and involved, and the organization moves forward with greater clarity and confidence.

In nearly every organization I work with, leaders are navigating more priorities than time allows. The challenge isn’t a lack of effort, but the constant pressure to decide what truly deserves attention right now.

Prioritizing is a discipline. It requires courage to say no, clarity to define what matters most, and consistency to return to those commitments over time. In the ALIGN framework, Legitimize is where organizations begin to make sense of what they have heard and translate it into shared direction.

A culture that prioritizes helps everyone focus energy where it matters most. It does not suppress ideas or slow momentum. Instead, it channels effort so that people work with confidence, knowing their time and talent contribute to what truly matters.

The following areas help create a culture that prioritizes: leadership alignment, visible purpose, decision discipline, transparent communication, and reflection in motion.

1. Leadership Alignment
Prioritization starts with leadership clarity and commitment.
• Agree on what success means for this phase of work.
• Name the top three priorities and why they matter.
• Define what “good enough” looks like to prevent perfectionism from blocking progress.

If leadership isn’t aligned, the organization feels it immediately—conflicting instructions, uneven workloads, and frustration across teams. Leaders must speak with one voice about priorities, reinforcing consistency through their own choices and actions.

2. Visible Purpose
People can only align around what they can see.
• Keep priorities visible in planning sessions, dashboards, and communications.
• Tie decisions, investments, and timelines back to the agreed-upon priorities.
• Explain the “why” behind what is being emphasized and what is being deferred.

Visibility transforms priorities from abstract statements into daily guides.

3. Decision Discipline
Saying “yes” to everything spreads attention thin. A disciplined organization says “no” or “not now” with intention.
Ask:
• Does this new idea or request directly support one of our priorities?
• If we take this on, what must stop or pause?
• Who will own this, and what capacity do they have?

Decisions become more consistent when leaders use shared criteria instead of gut feel or urgency alone. A decision rubric or “priority filter” helps protect resources and attention.

4. Transparent Communication
Priorities lose credibility when they shift without explanation. When direction changes, explain why.
• Clarify what triggered the shift. Was there was new information, client feedback, or a market change that drove the change?
• Restate what remains stable to ground the team.
• Share changes promptly and clearly to avoid rumor and confusion.

Context builds trust. People can adapt to change when they understand the reason behind it.

5. Reflection in Motion
Priorities are not set-and-forget. They require ongoing care.
• Schedule brief check-ins to ask, “Are we still focused on what matters most?”
• Review progress and adjust timelines or tactics as needed.
• Protect one hour each month for the leadership team to assess alignment and emerging needs.

Reflection does not slow work; it ensures that work remains meaningful.

Putting It All Together
Building a culture that prioritizes is not about rigid control; it’s about disciplined focus. When people understand what matters and why, they are more confident, collaborative, and resilient. Clarity protects capacity. Alignment builds trust.

A culture that prioritizes helps organizations stay steady in motion—responsive, not reactive—and keeps teams moving in the same direction, even as conditions shift.

Legitimize: Turning Insight Into Shared Direction

Part 2A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

This post is part of the ALIGN Series, where I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff so organizations can move forward with clarity and confidence.

When leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight. When staff are engaged early to shape the details, those ideas take root. People feel valued and involved, and the organization moves forward with greater clarity and confidence.

In the ALIGN Framework , we move from deep listening and absorbing information to making sense of what we have heard. Legitimize is the phase where leadership acknowledges that any perspective, frustration, and hope expressed is legitimate for the person who shared it.

That does not mean every idea becomes a priority. Nor does it mean that leaders agree with everything they hear. In fact, when there are inaccuracies or misunderstandings, this is the time to provide clear, factual information to stakeholders. It does mean that leaders take the time to understand why something matters and to discern what truth it may hold about the organization’s current reality.

This stage requires courage. Some feedback is hard to hear. Some is contradictory. At times, it feels there is simply too much information to process it quickly. It takes time to take in information, to sit with it, and then to make meaning of it. When leadership stays open, resists defensiveness, and demonstrates that feedback is being taken seriously, trust begins to grow.

When listening to stakeholders, the goal is not to judge but to hear. Listening in this way can also reveal how information flows—or fails to flow—through the organization. Where are people confused, misinformed, or missing context? Where do assumptions or old stories still shape perceptions of the present? Taking time to understand these dynamics helps leaders address not only what people are saying, but why they see things as they do.

Leadership then needs to make sense of what has been learned. This means discussing what the feedback reveals, identifying patterns, and clarifying what deserves attention first. Through this process, leaders work to align on a small set of priorities that reflect both what they heard and what the organization most needs now.

This is a critical step. Many initiatives stall here, not because of lack of effort, but because leaders move forward before they themselves are fully committed.

We often hear that change starts at the top. That requires more of the leader than simply saying, “This is a priority.” In this phase, leaders must take a close look at their own relationship to the topic at hand. They need to reflect on how they think and feel about the issue, how their actions have contributed to the current reality—both positively and negatively—and what their role will be in bringing new priorities to life.

Too often, this self-examination is skipped, and it becomes easy to assume that someone else is taking care of it. In heavily siloed organizations, this gap can deepen when the impact on one team is not understood by another. Legitimize asks leaders to consider how they will “show up” to effect change and how their personal commitment will shape the path forward.

Once leadership is aligned on their priorities and their commitment, it is time to close the loop with the broader organization. Legitimizing input requires more than saying, “We hear you.” It means demonstrating that listening led somewhere. Sharing a clear summary of what will move forward, what will wait, and what is outside the current scope helps people see that decisions were made with care.

When people see their input reflected in the path ahead, even if not every idea becomes a priority, they feel included and respected. That shared understanding is what allows alignment to take root.

Legitimize is where insight becomes direction.

In practice: leadership alignment sessions, collective sense-making, priority setting, and roadmap development

build THE culture that PAYS Attention

Part 1B of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

This post is part of the ALIGN Series, where I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework, a method designed to align leadership and engage staff so organizations can move forward with clarity and confidence.

When leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight. When staff are engaged early to shape the details, those ideas take root. People feel valued and involved, and the organization moves forward with greater clarity and confidence.

When I work with an organization, I begin by listening to what people say, reviewing and analyzing data, and observing people in action. I take in all of this information and sit with it for a while. By taking time to absorb before acting, I am better able to see the full picture of what is happening and what may be needed next.

What I noticed in working with clients during change initiatives is that people often feel compelled to act quickly. Yet I found that when I took time to absorb the information—to listen, observe, and reflect—I developed a more comprehensive understanding of the situation.

In developing the ALIGN framework, I encourage organizations to do the same: to take time to absorb information, experiences, and perspectives before deciding what things mean or how to act on them.

Absorbing begins with connecting to the here and now, to the reality of what is actually happening. Different people can have very different experiences in the same environment. The goal is to understand what is real in this moment, in this phase, and in this context.

When we stay attentive to what is real, not just what was planned or hoped for, we give ourselves and our teams the best chance to learn, adapt, and move forward effectively.

An absorbing culture is one where people make sense of what they are hearing and seeing, then act with clarity. It does not happen by accident. The following five areas help create such a culture: leadership signals, meeting norms, decision design, sense-making practices, and trust.

1. Leadership Signals

Leaders set the tone by showing that thinking counts as work.
• Say plainly that reflection and planning are valued.
• Protect your own time for it and make that visible.
• Encourage teams to pace themselves so they are not always reacting.

When leaders pause to think, they give permission for others to do the same.

2. Decision Design

Absorbing well is what makes thoughtful decisions possible. Decision design builds on that awareness, helping people process what they have learned and translate understanding into action.

Decisions are only as strong as the information that supports them.

Consider:
• What information do people need to understand the situation and make an informed choice?
• Is the information current, credible, and relevant?
• Where does it come from, and who is responsible for gathering it?

Every decision exists within a larger environment.

Consider:
• Do people understand the implications of the decision to be made?
• What is the surrounding context, including timing, urgency, and interdependencies?
• What happens if we delay the decision?
• What happens if the decision proves to be wrong?
• When and how can we adjust?

Context helps people weigh options more wisely and recognize that decisions are not final; they are part of an ongoing cycle of learning and adaptation.

A well-designed decision includes clarity about how it will be shared and understood.

Consider:
• Who needs to know about the decision, and at what stage?
• How will we communicate what has been decided and why?
• How will feedback be gathered to confirm understanding and identify adjustments?

When communication is intentional, decisions gain traction. People understand not only what was decided but also why and how the decision connects to the larger purpose.

3. Meeting Norms

Norms shape how people listen, share, and participate.
• Send agendas three days in advance, clearly marking what is for information, discussion, or decision.
• Encourage one person to speak at a time.
• Begin with context and close with next steps.
• Name the energy in the room — tense, focused, hopeful — and invite brief reflection.

Meetings should create space for attention, not exhaustion. Simple, predictable norms make participation more thoughtful.

4. Sense-Making Practices

Absorbing takes time, and time is scarce. It does not seem reasonable to suggest that you find extra hours. Thankfully, even protecting small moments can allow sense-making to happen.
•For some, 20 minutes at the start or end of the day works well. Others use a midweek walk, a quiet commute, or time after a major meeting to reflect.
• When calendars are full, take a two-minute pause between meetings to jot a note or ask, “What did I just hear?”
• Once or twice a week, can you find one unbroken hour for reflection, review, or planning? Treat it as a meeting with yourself and guard it as such.
• When leaders normalize these practices, they give others permission to do the same.

Absorption is less about time management than attention management.

5. Conditions of Trust

Building and keeping trust is a practice. It enables people to share what is really going on for them and to speak honestly about what they see.

In The Trusted Advisor, David Maister and his colleagues describe the Trust Equation, a simple way to understand how trust is built and maintained. They call it the Trust Quotient (TQ) — a measure of how credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation combine to create or erode trust.

Each variable matters:
• Credibility is about words. People trust what you say when your knowledge and communication are clear and grounded.
• Reliability is about actions. Doing what you say you will do, time after time, builds confidence.
• Intimacy creates safety. It is the sense that a person can share what is true without fear of embarrassment or exposure.
• Self-orientation is about focus. When attention is primarily on oneself — reputation, performance, or image — trust weakens. When focus is on the other person and the shared goal, trust grows.

A culture that absorbs depends on trust at every level. When credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation are balanced, people feel safe to say what they see, ask for what they need, and engage in real dialogue.

Trust allows truth to surface. Without it, people protect themselves. With it, they protect the work.

Putting it all together

When we talk about absorbing, we are talking about the disciplined, collective act of noticing, listening, and taking in before acting. Building a culture that absorbs requires attention to how the day is spent: what signals leaders send, how meetings are structured, how decisions are made, and what conditions make truth-telling possible.

When absorption becomes a shared discipline, people stop reacting and begin listening to themselves and to others with greater curiosity. Curiosity opens the door to clarity, and clarity becomes action.

Absorb: The Discipline of Paying Attention

Part 1A of the ALIGN Series
Absorb | Legitimize | Integrate | Grow | Nurture

This post is part of the ALIGN Series, where I introduce each stage of the ALIGN Framework — a method designed to align leadership and engage staff so organizations can move forward with clarity and confidence.

When leadership is aligned, brilliant ideas take flight. When staff are engaged early to shape the details, those ideas take root. People feel valued and involved, and the organization moves forward with greater clarity and confidence.

Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Messenger, meetings, emails, phone calls, Zoom calls—so much comes at us every day. The demand for our attention is real, and our ability to attend effectively is stretched to its limits.

And yet, we need to figure it out.

No one wants to be the person who asks a question in a meeting that was answered in the email they only skimmed. The email with the agenda that told you exactly what would be discussed, the one you saw but did not absorb.

Maybe you were asked in that meeting to present sales numbers you had glanced at. You saw the data, but you did not absorb what it meant.

Here’s the thing: absorption takes time.
Does anyone have time on their calendar that says “Time to Absorb”?

If you do, good for you.
If you don’t, consider adding “thinking time” to your schedule.

I know, the instinctive response is, I’m too busy to think.
This is where I often share a favorite expression: go slow to go fast.
When we slow down long enough to think, we make better choices and stronger progress.

Take 20 minutes at the end of the day to process everything that came your way: the information, the emotions, the casual asides.
Make a list of your impressions. Then sit with that list.
Are you hearing anything new?
Do any patterns emerge that deserve your attention?
Are questions beginning to surface that show you need more information?

Then, start your day with 20 minutes to check in with yourself.
Revisit your impressions from the previous day. Did any new insight surface overnight? How might that information shape the way you approach today?

Absorbing is not a phase or a project. It is a daily practice.
It means slowing down long enough to notice what is happening around you.

Who are the people you most need to be communicating with, and, more importantly, listening to?
What are they really telling you?
What is the emotional tenor of those conversations?

What are you observing?
Awkward silences in meetings? People talking over each other?
Or positive energy, with deadlines being met and problems being solved?

What do your senses tell you is going on?
What feels aligned, and what feels off?

Part of absorbing is resisting the urge to jump to conclusions.
It means taking in information, examining it at face value, and then going a little deeper.
What is your intuition or instinct telling you?
What deserves quiet contemplation, and what needs to be lifted out of your head and into shared conversation to check your understanding with others?

Absorbing is not only an individual practice; it is also a team practice.
How well do people listen in meetings?
Do team members listen to one another to truly absorb what is being said, or do they wait for their turn to talk?
Is there space for ideas to land before someone jumps in?
Does the pace of work allow people time to reflect and make sense of what they are hearing?

If there are frequent errors, short tempers, or repeated misunderstandings, the answer is probably no.
If, instead, people seem focused, grounded, and able to anticipate each other’s needs, you may have found a rhythm that allows your team to absorb effectively.

Absorbing is how we begin to sense reality.
It is how we move from reacting to relating, from gathering information to gaining insight.

This is the first step in the ALIGN framework:
to listen deeply to people, systems, and lived experience before moving toward action.
Because understanding what is really happening is the beginning of all wise work.

Engagement by Design: HOw Leaders Shape the Experience of Work

Employee engagement in the U.S. recently hit its lowest level in a decade.
According to Gallup’s 2024 Engagement Survey, only 31% of employees are engaged at work, and 17% are actively disengaged. Engagement peaked at 36% in 2020 but has been trending downward ever since, exposing deeper issues in leadership, culture, and execution.

Engagement is often presented as something employees alone choose. But there is another side to the story: Engagement isn’t just about how staff choose to engage. It’s about how leaders choose to engage with staff.

From Measurement to Meaning

Tools like Clifton Strengths can help us see engagement differently. The Clifton Strengths framework is often introduced to an organization as a onetime “team building” event. While these are usually well-received, many more benefits can be realized when leaders take the time to really study their team’s results. In doing so, they will realize will gain a lot of insight as to what energizes their people, what drains them, and what they need to do their best work.

Clifton Strengths provides:

• A language for what comes naturally to each person.

• Insight into how people contribute and collaborate.

• A bridge between individual purpose and organizational performance.

When leaders use this information to shape roles, goals, and recognition, strengths they will have  tangible tactical tools to further the success of both the individual and the organization.

Engagement Is a Relationship, Not a Metric

Gallup’s research points to specific patterns in why engagement falls , and each has a leadership counterpart.

From Strengths to Alignment

At Work Wise Studio, Clifton Strengths is the first step in the ALIGN practice, a practical framework for translating insight into action:

Absorb: Gather insight from people and data. Listen to what’s working and what’s missing.
Legitimize: Validate that input by integrating it into leadership conversations and decisions.
Integrate: Align strengths, roles, and goals so individuals can contribute where they add the most value.
Grow: Build capability through coaching, reflection, and iteration.
Nurture: Protect progress and reinforce behaviors that sustain engagement over time.

Together, Clifton Strengths and ALIGN help organizations move from “what we know about our people” to “how we lead because of what we know.”

 Engagement Challenge                                                                     

Engagement Challenge: Clarity of expectations has dropped sharply

• ALIGN creates shared understanding by connecting strategy, culture, and execution into  clear roadmap.

Engagement Challenge: Fewer employees feel cared for or supported.

• ALIGN integrates people-centered practices and ensures leaders listen deeply to staff insights.

Engagement Challenge: Development opportunities are lacking.

• ALIGN strengthens capacity through leadership coaching, team development, and resilience building.

Engagement Challenge: Engagement is lowest among younger employees.

• ALIGN invites diverse voices into planning, surfacing insights across generations and roles.

Engagement Challenge: Managers themselves are disengaged.

• ALIGN equips managers with coaching tools that build trust and accountability.

This is where Clifton Strengths and the ALIGN framework work together.
Clifton Strengths shines a light on individual potential. ALIGN gives organizations a way to act on what they learn.

When Leaders Engage Differently, So Do Their Teams

Consider this example:
A leadership team invested in Clifton Strengths because the leader felt that his team was while his team was responsive to requests, it was more reactive than proactive, and led to wasted time, inefficient use of resources , poor communication and times of real tension.

Through the ALIGN process, the team revisited their Strengths results,  not as a personality inventory, but as strategic input. They realized their collective profile was heavy on Execution and Relationship Building, but light on Strategic Thinking and Influencing
The result: Strong collaboration, excellent can-do attitude, but the work was reactive.

Once the team absorbed that insight and legitimized it in planning, they shifted how they worked. They slowed down. They did a retrospective of the previous year and identified patterns to inform practices. They used their excellent relationship building strengths to engage stakeholders in better planning. Deadlines were met without burnout. Communication improved. A year later, both client satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys had noticeably improved.

The change was not about working harder.
It was about working wiser.

The Next Level of Engagement

Gallup has long shown that employees who use their strengths daily are six times more likely to be engaged at work. But that insight alone does not create change. Engagement rises only when organizations build systems that recognize and use those strengths consistently.

That means:

• Leaders must model curiosity and reflection, not just performance management.

• Managers must connect individual strengths to team goals.

• Organizations must nurture cultures that make engagement a shared responsibility.

In other words, engagement is a leadership practice.

Taking It Forward

If your organization has already invested in Clifton Strengths, you have already taken the first step toward deeper engagement.

The next step is alignment: using that knowledge to shape how you lead, communicate, and grow.

Ask yourselves:

• How are we engaging with our people, not just measuring their engagement with us?

• Where can we better absorb, legitimize, integrate, grow, and nurture what we have learned from our Strengths results?

When leaders listen this way, engagement stops being a survey score and becomes part of the culture  where clarity, trust, and accountability fuel success.

Because engagement isn’t something we get from people. It’s something we design with them.

#EmployeeEngagement #Leadership Development #CliftonStrengths #WorkWiseStudio

Introducing ALIGN: The studio practiCe

In today's environment, change is not a special project or a temporary interruption; it is the environment we all work in. Organizations are constantly evolving, responding to new information, shifting priorities, and emerging needs.

Over the years, whether I was a staff member, a leader, or now, a consultant, I have learned something from every single person I’ve worked with. Staff and stakeholders offer valuable insights about daily challenges, short-term priorities, long-range possibilities, and the way forward. Yet too often, organizations overlook that wisdom.

Artists work differently. Whether painting, composing, or choreographing, they pay attention to what stirs inside them. They honor it. They give it form. That is how something new takes shape.

I believe organizations can and should do the same. The Studio Practice begins with listening to yourself: your thoughts, reactions, and instincts, and honoring what you notice by giving it words. Our wisdom is the sum of our experience. Each person holds a piece of it, and no one’s perspective is “wrong” when it reflects their lived experience and innate strengths. When organizations create space for people to access and share that wisdom, transformation begins. Because when people are invited to bring their wisdom to life, organizations do not just adapt to change; they thrive in it.

That is why I developed ALIGN: The Studio Practice Framework, a practical approach for bringing wisdom into the center of how leaders and teams work. ALIGN is designed for today’s reality. It is not just a framework for managing change, but a way of leading and operating in motion, where reflection, clarity, and alignment become everyday practices, and strategy, culture, and execution stay connected even as conditions shift.

How ALIGN Works

ALIGN represents five moves that help leaders and teams turn insight into aligned action. We call them moves because alignment is not a one-time process; it is a dynamic practice. Each move represents a deliberate action leaders can take to respond wisely to what the moment requires.

🔹 Absorb: Begin by seeking to understand what is really happening. Instead of rushing into solutions, listen carefully to people, systems, and lived experience.
🔹 Legitimize: Insights gain strength when they are shared and clarified. Turn observations into shared priorities and a roadmap that leadership owns together.
🔹 Integrate: Direction must translate into practice. Embed new approaches into daily operations, planning, and decision-making.
🔹 Grow: Change endures when people grow. Build capacity and confidence so teams can carry progress forward.
🔹 Nurture: Momentum lasts when culture is tended over time. Steward progress, celebrate learning, and adapt as conditions evolve.

Why it matters
Alignment is how vision becomes daily work. With ALIGN, you have a practical way to hear what is true, set what matters, and move together even as conditions shift. When alignment becomes a shared practice, organizations stay clear-headed, connected, and capable of meeting what comes next.

Alignment prompt
What is a small move you can make today that will help to align strategy, culture, and execution?