Story 08: Main Street
The story: They were both on Main Street, both heading to meet each other. Five minutes in, neither could find the other. Main Street runs both ways, and they had each started from a different end. The same landmark, used to navigate in opposite directions.
What it means for organisations: Alignment on language is not alignment on direction. Two teams can work from the same strategy document, cite the same priorities, sit in the same all-hands, and still move apart. Shared vocabulary is what makes it hard to catch. As long as both sides can point to the same sentence, neither has any reason to suspect the other is somewhere else.
Where next?
Read the comic as text
The Alignment Gap, Story 8
by Stavros Stavru, Ph.D. (weallagreed.com)
Scene 1: Main Street
A split scene of a small town with houses, trees, and street lamps. At the top, Axel walks along a street on his phone, passing a yellow church with a clock tower. Below, Ally talks on her phone as she walks past a different yellow church, this one with a steeple and a cross.
Axel: I'm on Main Street, going west.
Ally: I'm on Main too, but heading east.
Banner between scenes: “What could go wrong?”
Scene 2: Five minutes later
A bird's-eye view of the whole town. Both yellow churches are visible, far apart from each other. Axel and Ally, shown as tiny yellow figures, are still walking on opposite sides of town, nowhere near each other.
Axel: Are you sure we should still be walking?
Ally: Wait, where are you right now exactly?
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