Photo by 愚木混株 Yumu on Unsplash
Layer 1: Clarity
Before a leadership team can align on execution, they must build shared answers to six fundamental questions. These answers are developed together, not handed down, so that every leader actually owns them.
These are Lencioni's six questions from his book "The Advantage":
- Why do we exist? (The core purpose beyond making money)
- How do we behave? (The values that define our culture)
- What do we do? (The business we're in, simply stated)
- How will we succeed? (The strategic anchors that differentiate us)
- What is most important right now? (The single thematic goal for this period)
- Who must do what? (Clear ownership and accountability)
How It’s Built
The leadership team works through these questions together in a facilitated session, typically offsite. The clarity and alignment sessions (Layers 1 & 2) work best with a dedicated facilitator so that the senior leader and every member of the leadership team can focus on content rather than process. The facilitator doesn’t need to be external, but they should not be the most senior person in the room.
What the facilitator does: surface assumptions that aren’t shared, push for more specificity when team drifts towards platitudes, ensure the quieter voices get heard, name disagreements the group is trying to skip past, and document outcomes in language the team recognizes as their own.
What the facilitator does not do: drive the team toward a predetermined answer, fill silence with their own ideas, or let the session become a presentation. The value is in the conversation, not slides.
You’ll know this is working when team members can articulate the answers in their own words, without reading them off a slide, and when the answers actually inform decisions rather than sitting in a shared drive untouched.
In the next post we'll look at what happens after the clarity session. Getting answers on paper is the easy part. The harder work is making sure everyone is actually acting on the same understanding. That's Layer 2: Alignment.
In the next post we'll look at what happens after the clarity session. Getting answers on paper is the easy part. The harder work is making sure everyone is actually acting on the same understanding. That's Layer 2: Alignment.
References: The Advantage and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Patrick Lencioni); The Effective Executive (Peter Drucker)