Alignment exercise: Use perspectives to reveal conflicting agendas and discover

[Tina]

Alignment exercise: Use perspectives to reveal conflicting agendas and discover common ground

This exercise is particularly useful for teams in which individual team-members might have conflicting or secondary agendas to the goal of the team. Sometimes this is palpable but not out in the open. This might be the case in matrix organisations, or in project teams, where team-members belong to more than one team, or where interests might be at odds for other reasons. It can also be used in team-meetings, for example if there is a recurring sense of team-members prioritising their own agenda over the team’s agenda.
In addition to Alignment, it also fosters Constructive Interaction and Trust and supports clearer Goals & Strategies.

The exercise can be done with the whole team standing and occupying different perspectives in a perspectives wheel (my personal preference) but also works sitting around a meeting table or other configuration.

Ground rules and sequence:
* Coach (or someone else if no Coach present) holds the process of the exercise
* Everyone speaks in turn (the team might decide to set a time limit, e.g. 1 minute per person)
* The agenda / topic of discussion is put out in Front (i.e. when people speak, they speak to the topic)
* The one speaking clarifies their point of view on the topic and their motivations (how are they invested, what’s at stake for them)
* The non-speaking team-members actively listen
* When the first round is complete, the team “harvests” the commonalities and the points of conflict they heard (e.g. bullets on flip chart)
* Formulate clear alignment(s) based on the commonalities found
* Evaluate the importance of the points of conflict and how to address them going forward

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