How to Handle Internal Misalignment

You may have heard the story.

Warren Buffett once asked his pilot, Mike Flint, to write down his top 25 career goals. Flint did. Then Buffett asked him to circle the top five.

Now Flint had two lists: his Top 5, and the Other 20.

Flint said he’d focus on the Top 5, but still work on the others “intermittently.” After all, they were still important.

Buffett disagreed. Strongly.

“No, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘Avoid-At-All-Cost’ list. No matter what, these things get no attention until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

Maybe the story’s apocryphal. Doesn’t matter, it’s dead-on when it comes to internal alignment. Very few agencies die from bad ideas, they overdose on good ones. 

That’s the cost of being too democratic with your decision-making and management. 

Many of my conversations recently have been with leadership teams that aren’t in agreement. They have different perspectives on the firm’s positioning, they disagree about where to invest resources, or they can’t align on where their own focus should be. No one is wrong, but they’re unwittingly creating a list of 25 goals with no prioritization. 

The only answer is full alignment in action. Debate all you want but execution has to be singular. And sorry kids, compromise just dilutes commitment in this case. 

Your Alignment Needs to Be Tangible 

Last month I spoke with an agency leader who said something that stuck with me:

“We decided we’re only hunting big deals. We know the risks. But that’s how we’re going to run this business.” 

That’s alignment. Not because it’s very clever, but because it’s very clear. You either support the strategy or you don’t. The line in the sand is unmistakable. 

Good alignment sounds like: 

• We do not pitch higher ed RFPs.

• Our content speaks only to senior IT leaders. 

• All partners send 5 outbound messages a week. 

If there’s misalignment at your firm, who decides what matters? And what’s the cost of pretending it’s everyone?