How to Align Teams with Strategic Planning Frameworks

Could strategic misalignment be keeping you and your organization away from attaining maximum value? Executives and project managers are often rowing in different directions. The boat moves, but not necessarily toward value. From my doctoral research, and work with several clients, three pillars of strategic alignment consistently separate high-performing organizations from the rest: 1️⃣ Common Goals – A shared definition of success at both the strategic and operational levels. 2️⃣ Shared Language – Clear communication that bridges “executive speak” and project management terms. 3️⃣ Mutual Understanding – Executives gain insight into project realities, while PMs understand the strategic trade-offs leaders are balancing. The challenge? Most organizations talk about alignment but rarely make it a living system. That’s why I created the ALIGN™ Framework as a practical roadmap: 🪀 A – Assess the Value Chain → Define where value is created and lost. 🪀 L – Listen Across Levels → Build the “bilingual dictionary” across teams. 🪀 I – Integrate Strategy into Planning → Include PMs early in design, not just delivery. 🪀 G – Guide with Goals & Guardrails → Establish clarity with KPIs, OKRs, and constraints. 🪀 N – Navigate with Data & Confluence → Create mutual understanding with dashboards, forums, and collaboration tools. 🔑 ALIGN™ isn’t just an acronym. It’s the operating system for embedding the three pillars of Common Goals, Shared Language, and Mutual Understanding into everyday practice. When organizations apply it, strategy stops being a lofty document and becomes a lived reality. 📌 Question for you: In your organization, which of these three pillars: common goals, shared language, or mutual understanding requires the most urgent attention? Let's create the bride to ALIGN! ♻️Share to elevate others and follow🎙️Fola F. Alabi for more! #FolaElevates #StrategicLeadership #ProjectManagement #SPL #StrategicAlignment #Align #ExecutionExcellence #StrategicConfluenc

I led a $350M org through a strategic planning session - after just 2 hrs the CEO called it a "walk-off home run". Here's my exact framework for creating rapid alignment and vision: 1. The Trust Foundation (20 mins) First, let the room breathe. Watch. Listen. Then, ask each leader to share one childhood challenge they overcame. Why? Because vulnerability creates humanity, and humanity creates trust. When someone shares about their parents' divorce or getting cut from a team, defenses drop naturally. 2. The Vision Journey (30 mins) Create space for deep thinking: - Dim the lights - Play soft instrumental music (I use Dwell on Spotify) - Guide them through a day-in-the-life meditation set 5 years in the future Pro tip: Most leadership teams spend 95% of their time in the daily battle. Few step back to truly envision the future. At $350M scale, this vision gap costs millions. 3. Personal Expression (60 mins) Transform thoughts into tangible vision: - Silent journaling period - Create visual representations on flip charts - Share personal stories of their envisioned future 4. Collective Alignment (10 mins) Bring it home: - Synthesize individual visions - Craft collective bullet points - Write a unified vision paragraph - - - By the end, the team didn’t just have a vision. They had their vision, one that was personal, connected, and inspiring. For the first time, the company’s future wasn’t just a business strategy. It was a shared journey everyone felt deeply invested in. 🔑 The Magic Ingredient: It's not just about the business vision. By connecting personal futures with company direction, you create authentic alignment that drives real change. 💡 Key Learning: Most strategic planning fails because it jumps straight to strategy. But vision without trust is just words on a page. Trust without vision is just a nice conversation. Magic happens when you build both!

How many times have you walked out of a strategic planning retreat with glossy slide decks, beautiful diagrams, and a poster on the wall, only to find a year later that none of them changed how your company works? I have asked myself that question. The hard truth is that the gap is not in the vision or the strategy itself. The gap is in the daily behaviors that either pull strategy off the wall or let it gather dust. I have created my daily checklist to fill the behaviour gaps and keep myself and team accountable. 1/ Review Critical Objectives First → Skim the key KPIs or OKRs every morning. → Ask, “Are there any imminent red flags or at-risk objectives?” → Flag them for discussion but resist fixing them yourself. 2/ Avoid “Rescuing” Behavior → When someone asks you to solve a problem they own, respond, “What is your plan to address this?” → Offer guidance only if they are genuinely stuck. → Do not take over the task. 3/ Foster Transparency Early → Encourage team members to surface challenges in daily stand-ups or quick syncs. → Begin with, “What risks do we see today?” → Prevent hidden issues from escalating. 4/ Offer Support, Not Orders → In one-on-ones or micro-huddles ask, “What do you need from me or others?” → Provide resources or coaching as needed. → Maintain each person’s ownership of the outcome. 5/ Recognize Small Wins and Efforts → When you see progress or a creative solution, acknowledge it immediately. → Reinforce that accountability also means noting successes, not only misses. 6/ Appeal to Higher Motivations → Remind the team why their work matters. → “This project aligns with our goal to become the Y Combinator of Fintech.” → “You are building skills toward a leadership path.” 7/ Stay Consistent with Consequences → If commitments are missed, remain calm but firm. → “We agreed you would have a plan by today. Let us discuss where you are.” → Document repeated misses to ensure real accountability rather than threats. 8/ Communicate Accountability Publicly → In team chats or shared documents label tasks clearly with owners. → Encourage transparent status updates. → Reduce the need for the you to chase progress. 9/ Check Personal Actions Against the Strategy → At the end of each day ask, “Did I defer any tough decisions out of fear or comfort?” → “Have I stepped in and rescued someone who should own their own problem?” → Correct the course early if patterns recur. 10/ Create a Culture of Asking “Why?” → When tasks arise, examine how they tie back to strategic goals. → If alignment is unclear, pivot or say “no” to avoid scattered effort. I keep this list pinned near my table -- and the more times I follow it -- the more our strategy is actually alive. 💡 I am curious to hear how you keep strategy in motion? Share your daily ritual or best tip below. #accountability #leadership #strategy #execution

How do you align an entire company around the same goals? It’s something we consider very important at Thinkific especially as the team has grown. Recently, we started rolling out V2MOM to help bring more structure and clarity to that process. For anyone unfamiliar, V2MOM is a goal-setting framework created by Marc Benioff at Salesforce. It stands for Vision, Values, Methods, Obstacles and Measures — a simple but powerful way to clarify what you’re trying to achieve, how you’ll get there and what might stand in your way. We’ve used a few goal setting frameworks over the years (OKRs, Rockefeller Habits) but something always felt like it was missing. I felt we had room for improvement in how we identified obstacles and anchored goals in guided principles. What I like about V2MOM is the structure. It’s not just about setting a vision and defining success, it also forces you to think through the values that guide your work, the potential obstacles and the specific methods you'll use to get there. Another shift for us is in how we cascade goals. My V2MOM connects directly to my direct reports’, and theirs to their teams. There’s still room for team-level priorities, but everything ties back to the company’s broader vision. That level of alignment brings a lot more clarity: on what we’re doing, what we’re not and how each person contributes to the big picture. So far, I’m a fan and I’ve also heard positive feedback from our team who’ve said V2MOM is helping reinforce a stronger sense of unity, shared goals and collective impact. It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s helping us be more intentional about both what we’re working toward and how we get there. Always curious — what frameworks or tools have you found most effective for aligning goals across your team or company?

No PowerPoints. No monologues. Just paper, pens, post-its, and unfiltered conversations. Apparently, team alignment matters to achieve the business targets. And alignment needs space. So, in April me along with my core team, we decided to step out of routine and take an off-site ‘strategy detour’, literally. Away from the noise, we sat together as a team… and tried to understand: What are the challenges we face? What are we doing well, but not acknowledging? What part of the work feels like “work,” and what part energizes us? What do we want to become in the coming period? Here are 4 things we did, and why they made all the difference: 🔹 SWOT, not just on paper. We asked tough questions. Which services are creating more impact? Which ones need a new lens? Then mapped out our strengths and blind spots honestly. 🔹 Role ≠ Responsibility. Everyone wrote down what they do, not just what their job title says. The gap between role and real work sparked some solid clarity. 🔹 Uncovered the challenges. We didn’t just talk about what’s working. We spoke about what’s not. No filters. Just facts. 🔹 Yearly targets. We mapped out our goals, aligned roles & definitions of “ownership,” and how success looks and feels to each one. Strategy is a serious word. But it starts with something simple: Listening. Then planning. Not the other way around. If you haven't yet (or ever) taken a 'strategy detour' with your team, then this is your sign to do so. #Entrepreneurship #BusinessStrategy #Ownership #SWOT #Targets #Goals

Most strategies fail not because they’re wrong, but because no one on the ground was asked. Involving employees in strategy isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s essential for both strategy quality and execution. Here’s why gathering input from your team matters: ☑ Better strategy design ↳ Frontline teams understand the real customer pain, inefficiencies, and risks that leadership may not always see. Their insight makes strategy more grounded and feasible. ☑ Builds ownership and commitment ↳ People support what they help create. Inclusion drives motivation and lowers resistance to change. ☑ Enables true alignment ↳ When you cascade goals based on real input—not top-down assumptions—execution becomes smoother and more relevant. ☑ Strengthens change management ↳ Early involvement helps identify resistance, clarify concerns, and activate support where it counts. ☑ Surfaces hidden risks and ideas ↳ Employees often spot what leaders miss—unseen threats, unmet needs, and opportunities for innovation. ☑ Fosters a listening culture ↳ Two-way dialogue builds trust. And trust fuels strategic momentum. To make this real: 1. Run cross-functional strategy workshops 2. Engage pivotal roles—not just senior titles 3. Use a 7x7 communication loop (7 messages, 7 ways) 4. Collect input early. Share decisions transparently. If your strategy doesn’t include the people who’ll execute it, it’s just theory. Ask early. Listen deeply. Align fully. P.S. If you like content like this, please follow me.

Most strategy frameworks fall short. Here's why–and what to do about it. They help you define ambition. They map out choices. They even get you nods around the boardroom table. But when it’s time to move from strategy to execution, they go quiet. I’ve used Roger Martin’s Playing to Win framework across dozens of engagements. It’s elegant. Clear. Powerful. But two persistent blind spots kept surfacing in real conversations with leadership teams: 1️⃣ THE ORGANIZATIONAL QUESTION Every meaningful strategy discussion eventually hits a wall: “Do we have the right organization to make this work?” This isn’t about capabilities only. This is about the entire organization. 👉 Do we have the right skills, systems, structures, talent, and culture to deliver? Can our current setup support this strategy—or does something fundamental need to change? Most frameworks leave that for later. I believe it belongs upfront. So I built it directly into the Business Strategy Canvas. Now, leaders can assess strategic options alongside the capabilities they demand—before locking in a direction that’s impossible to execute. 2️⃣ THE "HOW WILL WE DO THIS?" QUESTION People across the business want to know: “How do we actually make this happen?” Brilliant strategy that can’t be executed is just expensive theory. The best strategies don’t just guide—they enable action. 👉 That’s why I added an explicit bridge to execution in the canvas: A final, structured step that connects direction to delivery. The result? ✅ A practical strategy tool that forces leaders to confront feasibility—not just formulate ambition. ✅ It eliminates the illusion that strategy and execution are separate disciplines. ✅ It exposes trade-offs and constraints early—when you can still act on them. ✅ It turns strategic design into a process of alignment, not just aspiration. No tool is perfect. This one isn’t either. But it’s helped leadership teams design strategies that live beyond the deck—and actually move the organization forward. Grab your copy below or download a hi-res version here: https://lnkd.in/dcPsx9AP Let’s stop designing strategy in a vacuum. ❓ What’s the biggest gap you’ve seen in strategy frameworks? Comment below. ♻️ Share to help your team make better strategy and Follow Dr. Marc Sniukas for more.

Most startup annual planning processes get the order wrong. They start with "How many people can we afford to hire?" instead of "What do we need to achieve?" Here's the framework I use with my clients to align revenue targets, commercial goals, and headcount planning: Start with clarity on what success looks like. Begin with your revenue or growth target, then map the commercial goals needed to hit it (entering a new market, launching a product line, monetizing new features). For VC-backed companies, ask yourself: What needs to be true to raise our next round given the current market? How long do we have to get there based on our cash runway? Remember — at a startup, you're building 3 products simultaneously: - A customer-facing product - An investment vehicle - A workplace for employees Your annual plan needs to account for all three. Then, build your headcount two ways: top-down AND bottom-up. Top-down: Build a zero-based org chart with strategic constraints. Let's say your revenue target is $20M and you want $200K ARR per FTE. That's a max of 100 people. Start with a blank org chart. Don't consider your current people or structure — build from scratch based on what you need to achieve your goals. Use industry ratios as a starting point (e.g., Sales & Marketing gets 35% of headcount), then adjust for your context. A B2B enterprise company struggling with retention needs different ratios than a PLG company hungry for more inbound leads. I call this "industry-informed, context-driven." Work with leadership to map out your ideal org chart within these constraints. What roles do you need? What does the reporting structure look like? Bottom-up: Ask each team to build their plan to meet their goals. Have your Sales leader calculate the reps needed to hit pipeline targets based on realistic quota attainment. Have your Engineering leader estimate the team size required to ship the product roadmap on time. They're working within the top-down parameters you've set, but with the operational detail only they have. Aggregate the departmental plans and map them onto an org chart too. The magic happens when you reconcile both org charts. Put your top-down zero-based org chart next to your bottom-up aggregated org chart. Where do they differ? Then, compare both views against your current org chart. This three-way comparison forces the strategic conversations you need to have. This is where you determine exactly where you need to: ✓ Hire new talent for gaps in your ideal org chart ✓ Upskill existing team members to grow into new roles ✓ Make difficult exits where current roles don't exist in either future view ✓ Adjust timelines or scope based on resource reality The best annual plans aren't spreadsheet exercises. They're strategic documents that connect your growth ambitions to the people and resources needed to achieve them. What's your biggest challenge with annual planning?

In almost every health tech company I work with, I see the same pattern: The mission gets everyone inspired. But if you ask five teams how their work ties back to it, you’ll get five different answers. 🗓️ Product is planning quarterly bets. 💸 Sales is promising custom features and services. 📣 Marketing is chasing a new brand partnership. ⚙️ Clinical is trying to make it all work. 🔬 Research is running two quarters (or years) behind. ...And nobody’s quite sure how it all ties together. It’s not always strategy problem. It’s usually an alignment problem. And the fix isn’t another 80-slide strategy deck or an OKR spreadsheet. When I work with health tech leaders on this problem we start with creating simple, visual frameworks to connect the dots. There are a few tools I always come back to: Ravi Mehta’s Strategy Stack is a clear model for aligning mission to each team’s goals. Melissa Perri’s Strategy Canvas is great for surfacing assumptions and gaps. The (infamous) Amazon PRFAQ helps clarify priorities and concerns across teams before we start building anything. Simple strategy tools like like these are especially helpful for clinical and research functions. Instead of staying siloed or getting brought in too late, they help everyone connect their work to company priorities in a way that’s clear and energizing. Without a simple, shared framework, teams run parallel but not together. Each one is optimizing for different goals, timelines, and definitions of success. 📚 In my latest WELL workshop, I walked through how you can use simple tools to put the pieces together and get teams on the same page. 🎥 The replay is up for a limited time: https://lnkd.in/e52SDwXn ❓Health tech folks, what tools are you using to align across teams? Drop a link—I’d love to build a roundup.

Misaligned Teams: The One-Degree Disaster Five ships leave New York harbor together. Each is aimed just one degree apart. The difference is imperceptible. In the first few miles, they appear close - still within shouting distance. No big deal, right? But let’s say the ships are moving fast - 25 knots. After 24 hours, they’ve traveled 600 nautical miles. That one-degree difference now puts them nearly 70 miles apart. One ship may be veering toward Bermuda, while another drifts toward Newfoundland. They’re still in the Atlantic, but they’ve entered very different waters. One heads into the warm, calm Sargasso Sea. The other into the cold, choppy currents of the subpolar North Atlantic. Different climates. Different hazards. This happens with teams too. They leave the “harbor” together - same kickoff, goals, and energy. But if each team interprets the mission slightly differently, or prioritizes work through their own lens, they begin to drift. Not dramatically. Not immediately. But steadily. Soon enough, they’re solving different problems and delivering outcomes no one asked for. Alignment with business needs isn’t automatic or self-sustaining. It decays, unless you actively maintain it. Teams don’t drift because they’re careless. They drift because there’s no system to keep them aligned as the journey unfolds. Business priorities shift. Markets change. Strategies evolve. Risks materialize. Without a mechanism to realign along the way, even high-performing teams can end up off course - efficiently delivering the wrong thing. This is where the SAFe can help. SAFe doesn’t assume teams will stay aligned. It's designed for periodic realignment. PI Planning brings everyone (teams, architects, product managers, executives) into the same conversation every 8-12 weeks. Not just to make a plan, but to make a shared plan. Teams define objectives based on business priorities. Business Owners assign value. It’s a handshake between strategy and delivery. Lean Portfolio Management makes strategy flow downstream. Themes, budgets, and priorities become epics, features, and stories. Teams don’t work on pet projects; they build what the business is investing in. Inspect & Adapt events offer structured course correction. These aren't just retros - they're checkpoints. Did we deliver what we planned? Did it create the value we expected? How can we improve? Cadence and synchronization keep ships sailing in the same direction. Teams share the same iteration and PI cycles. That structure enables collaboration, integration, and fast pivots when priorities shift. No framework guarantees alignment. But SAFe anticipates drift and provides mechanisms to detect and correct it. The point is that alignment isn’t a kickoff event. It’s a continuous discipline. It’s one thing to be aligned in the harbor. It’s another to stay aligned at sea. If you're leading at scale without regular, intentional alignment mechanisms, expect your teams to drift off course.