Nov 2026

The Leadership Lens - Edition 17
Sharpen your view, elevate your impact—one edition at a time.

When Everyone Was Right, but We Still Couldn't Agree

I remember representing the Operations team at a shutdown scope finalization meeting for one of our kerosene hydrotreater units. The shutdown was scheduled approximately twelve months later, and we were reviewing the equipment maintenance requirements.

One particular discussion became unexpectedly contentious.

Our reactor circuit used reciprocating recycle gas compressors. Unlike centrifugal compressors, which generally have longer maintenance intervals, these machines required annual maintenance for reliable operation.

The unit had a spare compressor, allowing one machine to be maintained while the other continued operating.

From the Reliability team's perspective, annual maintenance was essential.

From the Turnaround team's perspective, compressor maintenance didn't need to be included in the shutdown. The machines could be maintained while the unit was operating, and excluding unnecessary work would help control shutdown scope and duration.

But Operations had a different concern.

During the initial phase of unit startup, we needed both compressors operating briefly to prevent liquid accumulation in the furnace coils. Having only one available during this critical period was not an acceptable operating condition.

The discussion became heated.

Each team was defending a legitimate requirement. Reliability wanted dependable equipment. Turnaround wanted a disciplined shutdown scope. Operations wanted a safe and reliable startup.

Everyone was right within their own responsibilities. Yet collectively, we were stuck.

The turning point came when we stopped defending our positions and began listening to the concerns behind them.

Eventually, a solution emerged.

We agreed to release both compressors, one at a time, for maintenance while the unit was still operating, approximately three months before the shutdown.

That way, the compressors would receive their required maintenance, the work would remain outside the shutdown scope, and both machines would be available for startup.

No team had to compromise its fundamental responsibility.

We simply needed to look beyond our individual functional objectives and understand what the larger outcome required.

That experience reinforced an important leadership lesson for me:

Alignment isn't about deciding whose priority wins. It's about finding a way for legitimate priorities to work together.

Leading Beyond Authority

- Influence, Stakeholder Management, and Organizational Impact

Series 5/6 : Creating Alignment Across Teams

Organizations invest considerable effort in developing functional excellence.

Operations focuses on productivity and reliability. Maintenance works to preserve equipment integrity. Finance safeguards financial discipline. Projects drives schedules and delivery. Safety protects people and operational integrity.

Each function has its own priorities, performance measures and accountabilities.

And rightly so.

The difficulty arises when these legitimate priorities begin competing rather than complementing one another.

A project can be delivered on schedule but create operational difficulties. A cost-saving initiative can improve one department's budget while increasing another department's workload. A maintenance decision can optimize equipment availability today while creating challenges during a future startup.

Nobody necessarily intended a poor outcome.

The problem is that functional success doesn't automatically translate into organizational success.

This is where leadership must move beyond managing individual responsibilities to creating alignment across organizational boundaries.

1. The Invisible Cost of Functional Silos

Silos aren't always created by people who refuse to collaborate.

Sometimes they emerge naturally from the way organizations define responsibilities and measure success.

When leaders are evaluated primarily on their functional performance, they understandably focus on what they are accountable for delivering.

The problem begins when the wider consequences of those decisions remain invisible.

Consider a familiar situation.

The Projects team celebrates completing an installation on schedule. Operations discovers that the equipment is difficult to operate. Maintenance identifies accessibility problems. Safety raises concerns about maintainability.

Each team may have met its immediate objective.

But has the organization achieved the best outcome?

This is why cross-functional leadership requires a broader question:

Are we optimizing our individual responsibilities or the outcome we are collectively responsible for?

That question can change the quality of an entire discussion.

2. Alignment Is Not the Same as Agreement

One misconception about collaboration is that successful teams must agree on everything.

They don't.

In fact, different perspectives are often precisely what make cross-functional decisions stronger.

Operations should challenge decisions that threaten operating reliability.

Finance should question investments that don't create sufficient value.

Safety should raise concerns about unacceptable risks.

Projects should highlight schedule and execution constraints.

These differences are not necessarily obstacles. They are valuable inputs to better decisions.

The distinction lies between three concepts:

Agreement means we share the same opinion about what should be done.

Alignment means we understand the chosen direction, its rationale and our responsibilities, even when our individual preferences differ.

Commitment means we take ownership of the actions required to deliver the agreed outcome.

A team can disagree during the discussion and still become strongly aligned around the final decision.

But alignment must never mean suppressing legitimate concerns or overlooking unresolved risks simply to achieve consensus.

Healthy disagreement strengthens decisions when leaders create the space to examine it.

Agreement makes collaboration comfortable. Alignment makes collaboration possible. Commitment makes execution happen.

3. When Teams Are Stuck, Change the Question

Looking back at our compressor maintenance discussion, I realise that much of the initial disagreement came from how we framed the problem.

The conversation had effectively become:

Should compressor maintenance be included in the shutdown scope or not?

That question created opposing positions.

Turnaround argued against including the work.

Reliability emphasized the maintenance requirement.

Operations emphasized the need for two available compressors during startup.

Everyone defended their position because each position represented a legitimate accountability.

But once we began appreciating one another's concerns, a more useful question emerged:

How can we ensure compressor reliability and startup readiness without unnecessarily increasing shutdown scope?

Suddenly, the discussion was no longer about whose position should prevail.

It became about finding a solution that addressed the larger operating requirement.

The eventual decision to complete maintenance sequentially before the shutdown was possible because we had reframed the problem.

This is an important leadership capability.

When teams become entrenched in their positions, the leader's role isn't necessarily to provide the answer.

Sometimes it is to help everyone see the problem differently.

4. Influencing Without Authority

Cross-functional leadership becomes particularly challenging when the people whose cooperation we need don't report to us.

We cannot simply instruct another department to change its priorities.

And escalating every disagreement to senior management rarely builds lasting collaboration.

Influence across functions depends on something more fundamental: understanding what matters to others and helping them understand what matters to us.

That requires curiosity.

What is the other team accountable for?

What constraints are they working within?

What risks are they trying to manage?

What would make it difficult for them to support our proposal?

And where do our interests intersect?

In our compressor discussion, progress became possible only when each team began appreciating the concerns of the others.

This wasn't about one function becoming more persuasive.

It was about creating sufficient shared understanding for a better solution to emerge.

Influence without authority grows when people recognize that you respect their responsibilities as much as your own.

5. From Functional Ownership to Shared Ownership

There is an important difference between asking another team to support our initiative and inviting them to participate in a shared outcome.

The first can feel like an additional burden.

The second creates an opportunity for collective ownership.

But shared ownership doesn't mean that everyone becomes responsible for everything.

Clear individual accountabilities remain essential.

In our compressor example, Operations needed to make the machines available for maintenance. Reliability needed to ensure the required work was completed. Turnaround needed confidence that compressor maintenance wouldn't become an unnecessary addition to the shutdown scope.

Each function retained its responsibilities.

What changed was the understanding of how those responsibilities contributed to a common outcome.

That is the essence of shared ownership:

Different responsibilities. Shared understanding. Coordinated commitments. One organizational outcome.

6. The Alignment Bridge: From Understanding to Execution

I find it useful to think of cross-functional alignment as a bridge connecting four essential elements.

Shared Outcome — What Are We Trying to Achieve Together?

Before discussing individual actions, establish the larger objective.

What does success look like for the organization, rather than for any one function?

If teams cannot articulate a common outcome, collaboration will remain vulnerable to competing priorities.

Shared Understanding — What Matters to Each Team?

Invite stakeholders to explain their concerns, constraints, dependencies and non-negotiable requirements.

Don't rush to eliminate differences.

Understand them.

Sometimes the most important information is the concern that hasn't yet been voiced.

Shared Commitment — Who Will Do What?

Once a direction is agreed, translate it into specific actions.

Who owns each responsibility?

What resources are needed?

What dependencies must be managed?

What decisions remain outstanding?

Alignment without commitment is merely a good discussion.

Shared Accountability — How Will We Deliver Together?

Establish how teams will track progress, resolve emerging issues and address changing circumstances.

A decision made in a meeting doesn't automatically become coordinated execution.

The quality of follow-through determines whether alignment creates results.

Shared Outcome → Shared Understanding → Shared Commitment → Shared Accountability

These four elements help transform collaboration from an intention into an operating discipline.

7. The Leadership Challenge: Don't Confuse Harmony with Alignment

One of the more subtle leadership traps is mistaking the absence of disagreement for alignment.

A meeting ends without objections.

Everyone nods.

The minutes record that the proposal was agreed.

Yet, weeks later, progress stalls.

Why?

Perhaps concerns were never openly discussed.

Perhaps the implications for another function weren't fully understood.

Perhaps people agreed in the meeting without genuinely committing to the actions required.

This is why effective leaders don't simply ask:

"Does everyone agree?"

They ask:

"What concerns have we not yet addressed?"

"What could prevent us from delivering this together?"

"Are our commitments clear?"

"What will we do when priorities begin competing again?"

These questions may introduce some discomfort into the discussion.

But they also prevent much greater discomfort during execution.

A little constructive disagreement early can save considerable frustration later.

And as we explored in our previous edition, courageous conversations often create the foundation for stronger leadership outcomes.

A Leadership Lens Reflection

Think about an important initiative that depends on cooperation across multiple teams.

Ask yourself:

• Are the teams genuinely aligned on the larger outcome, or simply pursuing their individual targets?

• Have I understood the constraints and concerns of the other functions?

• Are we spending more energy defending our positions than solving the shared problem?

• Have we translated agreement into clear responsibilities and commitments?

• What conversation could help us move from functional priorities towards shared ownership?

Perhaps the most revealing question is:

If every function successfully delivers its own objectives, will the organization necessarily achieve the outcome it needs?

If the answer is uncertain, there may be an alignment challenge worth addressing.

A Final Thought

The compressor maintenance experience taught me that alignment doesn't always require extraordinary leadership interventions.

Sometimes it begins with something much simpler.

Listening to another team's concerns.

Recognizing that their priorities are as legitimate as our own.

Reframing the problem around a shared outcome.

And being willing to explore solutions beyond the boundaries of our individual responsibilities.

In complex organizations, no single function holds the complete picture.

That is why the ability to bring different perspectives together is becoming one of the most important capabilities of effective leadership.

Great leaders don't eliminate functional differences. They turn those differences into collective strength.

Because ultimately, leadership impact isn't measured by how successfully our individual team performs, but by what we enable the organization to achieve together.

A COOL RESOURCE - Alignment Builder Canvas™

Cross-functional alignment rarely happens by accident. It requires leaders to make shared outcomes, competing priorities, interdependencies and commitments visible.

The Alignment Builder Canvas™ is a practical tool designed to help leaders bring different teams onto the same page without ignoring their legitimate concerns.

Using the four elements of the Alignment Bridge: Shared Outcome, Shared Understanding, Shared Commitment and Shared Accountability, the canvas helps you identify where alignment is missing, surface potential conflicts, clarify responsibilities and translate discussions into coordinated action.

Use it when planning cross-functional initiatives, resolving competing priorities or preparing for decisions that require multiple teams to work together.

Because alignment isn't achieved when everyone agrees in the meeting. It's achieved when everyone understands what needs to happen and takes ownership of making it happen.

In our Next Edition - Becoming a Strategic Leader

As leaders grow in responsibility, their contribution must extend beyond managing today's priorities and delivering immediate results.

They must learn to recognize emerging opportunities, anticipate risks, connect operational realities with organizational direction and make decisions with a longer-term perspective.

In our final edition of the Leading Beyond Authority series, we'll explore the transition from operational effectiveness to strategic leadership and what it takes to influence the future rather than simply respond to the present.

Because strategic leadership isn't about stepping away from execution. It's about understanding how today's decisions shape tomorrow's possibilities.

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Until next time,
~ Amazing Coach Sri
Transforming Lives through Coaching

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