Why is Alignment so important?

If you asked me 5 years ago to define alignment, I probably would have said something about the wizardry of a chiropractor. And then a series of unaligned events took place and one actual wizard appeared in my life.

Since then, I've been obsessed with Alignment.

Here's a wonderful quote I saw today:

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.” – Swami Vivekananda

The way that I think about Alignment these days is a strange and involves some engineering.

Whether its the Alignment of a team or just our internal Alignment within our own mind and body, I like this metaphor. Picture a bunch of row boats towing a much larger boat. Now imagine only 10% of those boats are rowing in the direction you want to go and the rest are either not rowing at all, rowing in their own direction or worst of all rowing in the opposite direction. In this case, you are not moving that large boat very fast if at all, and the 10% rowing won't stick around for very long.

I think about the metaphor probably every day. I've been on teams like that where everyone is rowing in their own direction. I've had times where internally I've been rowing in different directions. And I've also seen what's possible when true Alignment happens.

This is the difference exceptional leadership can bring to the table.

When you've been in an environment of competing rowers and suddenly all the rowers are working together in synchronization and harmony, the improvement is exponential. This is the way to success.