Archive | April, 2018

Alignment /execute

10 Apr

Interesting concept! I have a few questions, probably more questions than things to add.

Before that, a clarification. I intended “top-down, bottom-up, and lateral”  as communication style categories rather than as management systems. These styles are largely dictated by the individuals place in an organization. A busboy can’t issue top-down communications, and CEO’s can’t issue bottom-up communications. Or maybe they can. The ideas of communication and management are very mixed up in each other, especially when thinking of the communication of expectation. Usually when someone communicates an expectation to me, it reads as a command.

Are there differences between “communication of expectation” and command? Where do legitimacy, competency, and authority fit in? If you can clarify the concept of command beyond my questions please do.

I like the idea of combining command and consensus by order and emphasis. In a way it reminds me of D&D alignment tables.

1:Com-com    2:Com-con

3:Con-com    4:Con-Con


Each of these Management alignments could be assigned a default communication-to-execution style.

1:Pure Top-down                                         2:Top-down, bottom-up(with lateral)

3:Bottom-up(with lateral), top-down     4:Pure lateral


Around the world different cultures have different alignments. I imagine that some even employ communication styles other than their default settings. Could each culture have an optimal alignment? Culture and alignment are intertwined… but not always in proper alignment with each other. Is one easier to change than the other?

It may still be fuzzy, because there are different sizes of culture and alignments mixed within each other, and different expectations, and different communications of those expectations all mixed up in a way that makes it difficult to get my head around it.

Is it better for a company to have a mixed cultural background, but a same group culture, with similar alignments and different communication styles? Are rogue elements (individuals whose alignment does not match the group) potentially an asset to a group’s success? If not, which alignment is least likely to breed loose cannons?

Yes, this could most definitely be a book on its own.