#GreatThings

I once watched a room of seventeen VPs nod in perfect unison for forty-five minutes. Beautiful. Choreographed. Expensive. And absolutely nothing happened for two quarters. That was the day I learned that silence has a budget, and we were wildly overrunning it. I used to think a frictionless meeting was a successful meeting. I used to think "everyone's on the same page" was a compliment. I used to think dissent was a hygiene issue. Now I ask different questions. Who's quiet and why. What's being optimized for: optics or outcomes. Who gets to be wrong out loud in this room. Because alignment isn't the absence of disagreement. Alignment is disagreement that's been given a seat at the table and a deadline. Agreement is cheap. It's on sale every single day. Alignment costs you something. That's how you know it's real. So before your next "quick sync," ask yourself: am I building consensus, or just collecting nods? The nods won't save your strategy. The friction might. #Alignment #Leadership #Culture #BigIdeas #ThoughtLeadership #FrictionIsAF feature #GreatThings #OwnYourNarrative