When Teams Don’t Agree on Priorities, Everything Gets Harder
You’ve probably heard this question before:
“What’s really the top priority right now?”
When the answer differs depending on who you ask, you’ve got a bigger problem than just confusion. You’ve got misalignment at the core of your execution.
Teams pull in different directions, plans conflict, and resources get tied up in turf battles.
And even when everyone’s working hard, progress stalls.
Here’s what this often looks like:
- Planning meetings feel like politics.
- Every team has a different interpretation of “what matters.”
- You see teams duplicating work—or worse, undermining each other.
All because there’s no shared, visible, credible source of strategic truth.
So how do you fix it?
✅ Step 1: Create a Strategic Priority One-Pager
This isn’t a 20-slide deck. It’s a simple, one-page view that includes:
- The 3–5 top strategic priorities (in plain language)
- Context and rationale (why these matter now)
- Executive sponsors for each
- A valid timeframe (e.g., “By end of Q3”)
✅ Step 2: Make it real
Don’t just drop it in Slack and hope for the best.
Share it org-wide in rollout meetings, project kickoffs, and leadership updates. Make sure every team has seen and understood it.
✅ Step 3: Bake it into the rhythm
Reference it regularly—during standups, sprint planning, roadmap discussions, and new work intake. When new requests come in, teams should ask:
“Does this support one of our stated priorities?”
✅ Step 4: Use it to drive consistency
When all teams make decisions based on the same source of truth, execution becomes smoother, faster, and more focused. You spend less time arguing and more time delivering.
🎯 The payoff:
Priorities become part of the culture—not just part of a slide deck.
Teams move with greater trust, clarity, and alignment.
If this challenge sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
We see this problem in nearly every org that’s scaling fast—or reacting to change.
👉 For a deeper dive, download the free Survive and Thrive guide:
www.techleaderadvance.com/thrive
It includes this playbook—plus six more moves to improve delivery without burning out your team.
