Everyone’s Working, But Toward What?

Most teams don’t blow up. They drift.

People are busy. Meetings are happening. Tasks are moving.

But something’s off.

Progress feels slower than it should. Conversations go in circles. Approvals stall. Decisions get revisited.

It’s subtle. It’s quiet. But if you’ve been around long enough, you know what’s happening:

The team has stopped solving the same problem.

When teams lose altitude, here’s what you start to see:

• The architect defends design

• The contractor defends time

• The client chases clarity

• The consultant avoids risk

Each person is working hard. Each decision makes sense on its own. But stack enough of those decisions together, and suddenly the project is pulling itself in five directions.

Not because anyone’s wrong. Because no one paused to ask:

“Are we still aligned on what we’re actually building?”

The Drift Happens When No One Calls It

This is the point where most people double down. They try to push through. They throw more meetings at it. More logic. More updates. More effort.

It won’t work.

Because the issue isn’t about effort. It’s about alignment. The team is solving problems, but not the same ones. And certainly not for the same reasons.

So What Do You Do?

You don’t push harder. You pull the team back up.

You interrupt the drift with a few simple moves:

1. Stop solving and reset the frame.

If the group is deep in detail, ask:

• “What are we actually trying to solve here?”

• “Does this get us closer to what matters most for the project?”

Let the room sit with the question. Don’t fill the silence.

2. Surface competing priorities - without making it personal.

Try:

• “Feels like we’re all optimizing for different things right now. Can we call out what those are?”

• “Are we solving this for clarity, speed, cost, or protection?”

People will answer if you ask the right way. You just have to ask.

3. Bring the decision back to the real goal.

Not the task goal. Not the discipline’s goal. The project’s goal.

• “What would the client say they care about most in this moment?”

• “If we look back on this decision in a month, will we still believe it supported the outcome?”

This is where real alignment lives. Not in agreement, but in shared intent.

Collaboration Doesn’t Break Loudly.

It breaks quietly, when no one notices the drift.

You don’t need a new tool. You don’t need a longer meeting.

You need to raise the altitude. Interrupt the default. Anchor the team to something bigger than their individual scope.

Because when smart people solve the wrong problem, they make it worse, faster.

But when you realign the room?

That’s when things move.