Organizational Alignment
You want to do meaningful work with other people who care about the same thing.
You hear about an organization. You read their website--it’s exciting. You scan their data and results--it’s impressive. You read about their team--it’s strong and experienced.
You interview. The mission is inspiring. The people seem great. The work is daunting yet important.
You’re in.
A year later, your head is spinning: you don’t know what you’re accomplishing and how you got there. Teammates are tripping over each other. Resentment is building. Everyone cares. A lot. And yet no one can say where it’s all leading.
It’s rarely the external forces that cause this stress. It’s not the students. It’s not the parents. It’s not the funders. It’s not the customers. It’s not even the work itself.
So what is it?
What causes seemingly-high-performing organizations to unravel?
In our experience over the past 20+ years, many of these organizations have a very strong sense of purpose, very talented people on the team, and a packed Google drive full of pretty documents and spreadsheets. But what they are missing is the alignment between the Why, the Who, and the How.
Without a clear alignment between the Why (the vision), the Who (the people), and the How (the systems) , organizations will eventually hit a wall, start making significant missteps, or lose really good people. If those pieces are not in sync, then it does not matter the strength of the team or the beauty of the vision or the number of internal protocols.
After decades of leading in organizations, we've learned to spot the signals that an organization might be unraveling. Here are a few we've heard:
“Individually, people are great, but we don’t really know what the others are doing.”
“I’m not sure if that’s intentional - am I supposed to be out of the loop?”
“I think a lot of us are doing similar work. Are we reinventing the wheel? Are we not doing it well enough the first time?”
“We keep having big conversations, but I don’t know where they are going.”
“We don’t meet enough. I feel alone.”
“We meet too much. I need time to work.”
“We all have different ideas of where we are going - we take on so much but we don’t have capacity and we can’t prioritize.”
“I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to let the CEO or principal down”
“As the leader, I think I am transparent about everything, but my team just isn’t putting in the work to learn more.”
“I feel like I’m working all the time, but I don’t know if I’m doing a good job.”
These telltale signs of “organizational unraveling” not only weaken a team’s impact, but they also exacerbate the very racial inequities that our organizations and schools are trying to close. Organizations can commit hours to critically discussing and reflecting about power dynamics in society, but if their people are not valued and supported to do their best work, then those very same power imbalances will show up at work. Organizations can discuss systematic oppression at large, but if there are not clear and equitable internal systems, then the implicit structures and default norms will continue to favor those with power and privilege.
The good news is that misalignment can be addressed. After diagnosing where the problem is, organizations can make a shift. They can take a step back and clarify their why and then develop the strategy that aligns their people and processes to get there. They can work on building their team culture through explicit conversations and clear structures. They can streamline processes to allow for greater synergy and collaboration between people.
This is the work that we love to do at Avem Education Partners. We are passionate about protecting mission-driven organizations from this unravel. Our world has many problems. It also has many committed and passionate people ready to solve them with innovation and strategy. This is where we come in: we help organizations align their Why, Who, and How to harness the talent and brilliance necessary to tackle these urgent issues.