Alignment efforts too often begin with good intent. Executives agree there is a problem. Sales and marketing (along with other revenue functions) commit to working differently. Leaders invest time, attention, and political capital. New cadences are introduced, expectations are clarified, and early momentum reinforces the belief that this time alignment will hold.
And yet, in many organizations, it doesn’t.
Six or twelve months later, the visible markers of alignment remain in place, but the behavior underneath has quietly reverted. Teams are once again optimizing for functional performance. Decisions take longer. Friction resurfaces. Leaders find themselves revisiting the same conversations they thought had been resolved. When this happens, the conclusion is often that the organization lacked discipline or that leaders failed to reinforce the change long enough. That explanation feels reasonable. It is also incomplete.
In most cases, alignment did not fail just because people resisted it. It failed because it was never designed to endure.
The Structural Flaw Behind Most Alignment Efforts
Very often alignment efforts are launched as initiatives. That choice shapes everything that follows. Initiatives are built to mobilize attention. They are effective at signaling importance and creating short-term focus, but they are not built to govern behavior once attention shifts elsewhere. As a result, initiative-based alignment efforts depend on a fragile set of conditions: continued executive involvement, ongoing reinforcement through meetings and messaging, consistent individual discipline across functions, and willing cooperation when priorities inevitably conflict.
Those conditions can be sustained temporarily. They cannot be relied on indefinitely, especially as organizations grow, markets change, or performance pressure increases. When alignment relies on effort rather than structure, it will always lose to the system that already exists.
Why Alignment Fades Even When Leadership Remains Aligned
One of the most common misconceptions about alignment is that failure indicates a breakdown in leadership commitment. In reality, many alignment efforts collapse even when leadership teams remain aligned on goals and direction. The problem is not always disagreement at the top. It is that the mechanisms governing day-to-day execution were never changed.
In these situations, alignment exists as an overlay. It sits alongside the operating model rather than being embedded within it. Incentives remain functionally defined. Decision rights remain ambiguous. Performance reviews reinforce functional success instead of shared outcomes. Tools and processes continue to optimize for speed or efficiency within silos. If alignment only shows up in meetings but not in performance reviews, budgeting decisions, or prioritization conversations, the issue may be structural, not behavioral.
When stress hits, people do exactly what the system encourages them to do. Alignment falters not because it was forgotten, but because it was optional.
Initiatives Coordinate. Operating Systems Govern.
This distinction is where alignment is most often misunderstood. Initiatives are designed to coordinate behavior. They assume that if people are aligned in intent and supported by leadership, execution will follow. Operating systems are designed to govern behavior. They shape how priorities are set, how tradeoffs are made, and how success is evaluated, regardless of who is paying attention at any given moment.
Durable alignment only emerges when it is embedded in these governing mechanisms. That means alignment shows up in how work is designed, not just how it is discussed. When alignment is part of the operating system, teams do not need to be reminded to act in aligned ways. The system makes misalignment difficult to sustain because it no longer rewards it.
Why Alignment Failure is Often Invisible at First
Another reason alignment issues persist is that their impact is rarely immediate. Revenue can continue to grow. Forecasts may still be met. Activity levels remain high. From the outside, the organization appears to be functioning. Growth often masks misalignment until the cost shows up in forecast reliability, deal quality, or customer experience.
Internally, however, the cost accumulates quietly. Decision-making slows. Rework increases. Escalations become more frequent. Teams spend more time managing friction than creating value. By the time performance stalls or execution breaks down, alignment debt has already compounded. At that point, leaders often respond by launching another alignment initiative, unintentionally reinforcing the same cycle.
Reframing Alignment as a Design Problem
Organizations that sustain alignment over time approach the problem differently. They stop asking how to get teams aligned and start asking how to design the business so misalignment cannot persist unnoticed or unaddressed. That shift changes the nature of the work. Alignment becomes a question of structure, governance, and operating design rather than motivation or communication. Alignment often fails less because people will not change, but more because the system rewards them for not doing so.
It requires leaders to examine how priorities are set, how success is measured, and how tradeoffs are resolved when goals compete. It requires alignment to be reinforced by the system itself, not by constant intervention.
What This Means for Executive Leadership
If alignment in your organization only holds when it has active executive attention, it is not durable. It is conditional. Sustained alignment is evident when priorities remain clear under pressure, when teams make consistent tradeoffs without escalation, and when performance conversations reinforce shared outcomes rather than functional wins. That level of alignment does not come from better messaging or more meetings. It comes from design.
When alignment is treated as an initiative, it will always fade. When it is designed into the operating system, it becomes how the organization works.
If this was useful, forward it to a colleague who would benefit from rethinking how sales and marketing align to drive sustainable growth.
Until next week,
Jeff
RevEngine™ | Built for Revenue Leaders Driving Alignment and Growth—Together.
