One needs to be very clear on the circumstances and the context related to the issue of alignment or the lack of it. Once you are aware of the context, then you know where alignment is needed. There are times when you also have to build alignment about alignment. However, most of the times, consistency in people’s priorities determines if there is alignment or not. Alignment is needed to understand each other’s perspectives and to provide support at the right time — it serves as the lubricant to make the business run faster, better. There are different kinds of alignment that are needed to be built. I think top team alignment is not just a feel-good factor, but more of a granular alignment around specifics, trust, processes, values, strategy, goals, priorities, methods of execution, resource allocation, etc. One needs to prioritize and decide which alignment is the most critical and the work on building that. What the top team is, in itself, is a very different conc...