Alignment, Not Carrots and Sticks!1
by Lorne Armstrong
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A recent Harvard Business Review article on cooperation and change caught my attention. It provides an interesting illustration of what alignment is and is not. The headline of the article states2:
"Managers can use a variety of carrots and sticks to encourage people to work together and
accomplish change. Their ability to get results depends on selecting tools that match the
circumstances they face."
This brief statement raises several issues related to causing alignment in organizations. Some of the issues are raised by what is said, some by what is not said.
Not Carrots, Sticks and Tools
Alignment is not created by carrots and sticks - carrot and stick thinking makes it impossible to achieve real alignment. Those wielding the sticks and offering the carrots, by the very nature of the implied threat and bribery, create disconnection and separation from those they are seeking cooperation with.
"Selecting tools" is not the route to alignment. Tool selection places the focus on the tools and risks turning those you are seeking to align with into tools as well. It is difficult to cooperate with a tool; it is easier to learn how to use a tool. The level of engagement with those you are using as tools, or using tools on, is generally not high - leading to a low level of uncoerced compliance.
"Matching the circumstances" is also problematic unless one includes people and what they could accomplish together in their understanding of "circumstances." If one matches only the circumstances they miss consideration of the current relationships among people and between them and what they are out to accomplish together.
Conversations Generate Alignment
Getting people to change is a very weak basis for working. The real issue is having people work together powerfully to accomplish what is required. Alignment is essential to accomplishment, to developing people and teams to produce greater outcomes, and to providing more powerful leadership. It is grounded in a fundamentally different relationship with people than the relationship of "getting them to do what you want".
People-in-conversations is the territory of generating alignment. It is a relationship that is fundamentally different than trading opinions, consensus or compromise. It is a relationship in which people have a commitment to each other, to serve what is called for next in their organization. To serve what is missing and available to be fulfilled or accomplished.
Alignment has occurred when people, in conversation together, can come to hear a fitting and inspiring direction for their work group or organization. Trust and mutual intention are the foundation of alignment - deeper levels of trust provide a solid base for greater levels of accomplishment. Listening for what is called for next, and honoring and serving that, begins to reveal a basis for trust: people realizing there is something they are up to together.
Alignment is a question of what is fitting. It has to do with hearing a fitting direction for the organization or work group - where the fitting direction is not "made up"; it is heard by people in conversation together recognizing what it will really take to realize the promise and potential of what they are up to together.
Alignment is neither agreement nor consensus. People can agree on things that are not "fitting". Examples abound where people in organizations have "agreed" on a business direction or strategy that was soon revealed as not fitting. The business press is full of these stories: back-dating options, acquisitions that immediately drive the stock price down and other bone-headed moves. Leaders in these organizations could get others to agree or they could reach a consensus but they could not hear that it was not fitting or not a fit for their organization.
Leadership has to do with initiating and following through with the conversations from which alignment can emerge - establishing trust and mutuality and opening up new directions. With alignment there is resonance and inspiration. Inspired people working together in a fitting direction are way beyond carrots, sticks and tools to force cooperation.
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1 Armstrong, Lorne. The Tools of Cooperation and Change. Letter to the Editor, Harvard Business Review,
March 2007, pp. 136, 137.
2 Christensen, Clayton; Marx, Matt; and Stevenson, Howard. The Tools of Cooperation and Change.
Harvard Business Review, October 2006, Boston, MA. pp. 73.