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.