Once an executive team leaves the annual retreat where they have hammered out the strategic priorities, reality sets in. Suddenly they must sacrifice our functional resources, political clout, pet projects, or bonus potential to initiatives they agreed to in theory. New information comes in that validates some assumptions but undermines others.
Getting and staying aligned as an executive team is challenging, and there is a lot working against you. Organization and team culture. Personal egos and agendas. Customer demands. Investors and the financial market. Competitors and the operating environment. The list goes on. These are strong forces that can strain and even break your alignment.
The benefits of executive alignment are clear: better decision-making, cross-functional resource sharing, and more focused execution. And Integrated Project Management research found that fully aligned executive teams are three times as likely to report increasing revenue than those who are not fully aligned. So, it’s worth assessing your team’s effectiveness.
Make the Sacrifice
Leaders can and will agree on concepts and ideas. But that doesn’t change their actions or the direction they give to their teams. Strategic alignment doesn’t guarantee action, choice, or prioritization. An overt commitment means one will take, and direct their team to take, the steps necessary to achieve the desired result. In essence, they are not really aligned until they give something up.
A commitment requires a decision to pursue one option over others. It’s putting organizational goals above personal or functional goals. It’s easier to agree on what to prioritize than how to prioritize it. Everyone must demonstrate the priorities through their actions and behaviors.
Consider these well-known examples: Apple executives sacrificed technological research and short-term revenue when they committed to simplifying the company’s product line to focus on digital music with the iPod and iTunes. Similarly, in 2006 Alan Mulally and Ford’s executive team aligned on the “One Ford” strategy, and regional leaders gave up autonomy and local products. The move is credited with helping the car company avoid bankruptcy in the 2008 recession.
Identify What Needs to Change
One of the most effective things you can do as a team is to pre-emptively identify the actions, behaviors, and tradeoffs needed to realize strategy. Changes may be required by the organization overall and/or by the executive team themselves.
Organizational structure and processes may work against achieving your strategic initiatives. How do people get bonuses and promotions? How do you allocate expenses and attribute revenue? Are departments siloed or do they have opportunities to understand each other’s roles and challenges?
Commit Overtly to What You Won’t Do
Harvard University’s Michael Porter famously said. “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” Most companies commit to their strategic initiatives. IPM’s research found that only about a quarter of them commit to what they won’t do. It’s notable that one-third of executives who say they are fully aligned make such a commitment vs. only 10 percent of those who are not fully aligned.
Some companies even develop formal rules that forbid people from pursuing deprioritized strategic initiatives. If initiatives are successfully completed, perhaps there are resources and time left over. We recommend developing rules that guide decisions in this case, to ensure you assign those resources to the most valuable remaining projects.
Conduct Risk Management
You probably already have risk management in place for accomplishing strategic initiatives. You also should identify and mitigate any risks to the alignment of the executive team. What has caused you to become misaligned in the past? What might happen that could damage the team’s alignment?
Because their alignment enables more effective strategy realization and organizational performance, executive teams must make alignment an ongoing effort. And the ROI is strong: Sustained executive alignment transforms the leadership team into a cohesive force.
August 4, 2025
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