The Beat of Alignment in Leadership and Life
I really like watching travel and food shows on TV. Travel shows that involve a lot of eating are my absolute favorite; I just soak in the sounds, images and culinary delights of the locations on display. Italy is one of those special places I like to experience; any chance to encounter the country via TV has me hooked.
During the winter holidays I was watching “Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy.” In the show, he travels around uncovering regional cuisines, and I like seeing both the scenery and the food as well as watching him interact with local people. I used to watch Anthony Bourdain for similar reasons.
Stanley Tucci speaks Italian. What a beautiful language! My wife, Andrea, said, “You should try Duolingo.”
She’s been using Duolingo to learn Spanish for quite a while now. So I started learning Italian. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready for a conversation with Stanley Tucci or any of the people he meets, but perhaps someday I’ll visit Italy and I’ll be able to order a meal and the server will bring me something approximating what I thought I was ordering.
Why do I think Italian is beautiful? I just do. Why does my 17-year-old daughter, Ellie, like Taylor Swift, and why does my 14-year-old, Ava, like Metallica? They just do. And for them it’s obvious what beautiful music is. This makes for some interesting car journeys!
Ellie finds her musical outlet at school in choir. Ava is in the band and plays drums. The band has helped Ava find her place in a new school. Despite initial apprehension, percussion became her lifeline. Watching her in a concert, Andrea and I could see that fleeting moment as Ava exchanged smiles with fellow drummers and we realized how much the experience was providing alignment to her life. Music is a language with a beauty of its own.
The idea of learning a language is important when you go to a new organization. You have to listen and learn. Sometimes the “words” have nuances in the ways they are spoken, the “consonants” are enunciated with a certain force, and the various conditions and customs for how things get down, with or without words, is a regional variance of its own. What are the norms for this culture?
Then, as a leader, you want to introduce some new language. From being a learner of one language, you move into being a teacher of a new language.
Eventually, you have to find the pattern that brings alignment.
Ava and her drumming friends cannot all be drumming to their individual beats. The effect of percussion only works when everyone knows where the beat is. They may drum various rhythms, but they must be within the established beat for the piece to work.
Alignment is more than restructuring because a new leader has a new idea. It’s more than making sure everyone has a copy of the new decision tree to show where decisions are made. It’s more than a messaging strategy for a new brand narrative. It’s more than a buzzword.
It’s about finding the rhythm, the language we share, the drumbeat we all feel propelling us. It’s about discovering the curiosity, the sense of beauty, in the work we do and the community we serve. It’s part of our ethos as an organization. Then our governance, our structure, our brand identity will be the creative rhythms playing off the core percussive of compassion and restoration of hope that pulse through our work.
And one day we open our mouths and speak, and a new language comes out. In an organization, I hope it’s alignment, spoken with confidence and fluency.
But I’m not entirely giving up on Italian either.
