John had just taken over as leader of the new product development team. The team had been in place for a few months but had not made much progress and the previous leader of the team had recently left the organization. John had been successfully involved in other projects, but never as the leader of a team. However, his contributions had been noticed and he was now seen by management as the person to turn the new product development team around.

In meeting with members of the team individually, John got differing messages about what the team was working on and none of these seemed to fit with what management said they wanted.

John realized that it was up to him to get everyone on the same page. His first stop was a meeting with the team sponsor, the COO of the organization. John asked her to confirm the goals for the team and to let him know what she considered a successful outcome to be.

He then called a team meeting to discuss the goals with the team and ensure that everyone had the same view of what was required.

The alignment conversation is critical for teams. It gets everyone on the same page and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal. Ideally it is the first conversation for a team, but if the team has lost its way or there has been significant turnover, it is an important conversation to return to.

John knew that it was important that everyone heard the same message about what was needed, so he invited the sponsor to the first part of his meeting to outline what was needed, why it was important to the organization and to answer any questions. After the sponsor left the meeting, John then asked each person to talk briefly about what they had heard and what was important to them about the project. In doing this he was checking that not only everyone was on the same page but also committed to the outcome.

The next step would be to discuss how the goals would be reached and the key milestones. John decided that this was best done at a follow up meeting – he had achieved a lot in his alignment meeting with the sponsor.

It is the team leader’s role to identify which conversation is needed by the team to gain the necessary agreements to move forward. As conductor of the team’s conversations the team leader needs to make sure that everyone is playing in harmony from same music.

The alignment conversation ensures that all team members have the same understanding of what the team’s customer needs and are collectively work towards delivering what is required. It was a smart move by John to invite the sponsor to address the full team to ensure that everyone heard the same message.

To learn more about these ten conversations, what they can do for your team, and how to check on the conversational health of your team, view our current offerings.

RICHARD J. HEWS
Leadership and Change Coach
860-857-3588 • richard@pathwaysofgrowth.com