You might have a problem with agreeing if:

  • It can take days or weeks to make a decision
  • You have meetings with people to get them on board before you have meetings to make decisions
  • You require more than 1-2 sign-offs on key documents

In one company I worked, numerous key documents required more than 20 approval signatures. They wanted to ensure everyone agreed before building anything. The problem is how much time the approval process consumed.

When you want everyone to agree it will cost you in terms of timeline, morale, trust and more. Simply put; an agreement is costly.

Agreement (a.k.a. consensus) is expensive and almost always unnecessary in business.

Alignment not agreement

Agreement is when two or more people have aligned beliefs.

Agreement can be challenging to achieve. The challenge is in all the variables which make us individuals. For example, your core values are different from mine.

Our differences may have us look at something differently. When you add more people to the equation, you multiply and amplify the challenge in agreement.

Alignment allows for our beliefs to differ. Alignment means I have no serious concerns and will support a decision. Alignment says I am on board with moving forward.

Alignment or agreement: Which do you require?

Building Great Teams

Building Great Teams

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