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Read MoreThe Alignment Algorithm (Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Drift)
You can feel it before you see it.
It’s in the weekly sync that goes quiet for a beat too long after you ask, “So, how’s everyone feeling about the new direction?” It’s in the project update that’s all tactics and no “why.” It’s the quiet, gnawing sense that your team is rowing in different oceans, even though the Slack channel says you’re in the same boat.
This is mission-drift. And in a distributed team, it’s not a loud, dramatic mutiny. It’s a quiet, persistent leak. You don’t lose the ship in a storm; you wake up one day and you’re just… adrift.
For months, I chased this ghost. I wrote clearer docs. I hosted more all-hands. I repeated the mission statement like a mantra. The nods were sincere, but the disconnect remained. The output was fine, even good. But the soul of the work, the shared, pulsing reason we were doing it, felt faded.
The breakthrough didn’t come from another leadership book. It came from breaking a rule.
I stopped asking my team to listen to the mission. I started asking them to describe the movie they were starring in.
Sounds silly, right? I thought so too. But here’s the 3-step prompt that became our “Alignment Algorithm.” It takes 10 minutes. It works because it bypasses the tired, corporate part of our brains and talks to the part that tells stories, the part that cares.
The 3-Step Prompt: “What’s The Movie?”
Do this asynchronously. A thread in your team’s channel. A quick Loom. A shared doc. The key is giving people space to think, not perform.
Step 1: Set The Scene (The Prompt)
Write this exactly:
“Forget the OKRs for a second. I want you to think in metaphors.
If our team’s work right now was a movie…
1. What’s the genre? (e.g., A heist thriller? A heartfelt indie drama? A chaotic buddy comedy? A suspenseful mystery?)
2. What’s your character’s role? (e.g., The meticulous planner? The rogue wildcard who gets results? The heart who holds the team together? The rookie in over their head?)
3. What’s the feel of the next scene we’re shooting? (e.g., Are we gearing up for the big win? Are we lost in the woods arguing? Is it a quiet moment of building something beautiful?)
No wrong answers. This is not a test. This is a vibe check.”
Step 2: Listen to The Soundtrack (The Diagnosis)
You don’t need a spreadsheet. You just need to read.
The magic isn’t in any single answer. It’s in the pattern across answers.
Alignment sounds like: Different genres, but a shared emotional core. “Heist thriller” and “underdog sports drama” are both about a team against the odds, executing a plan. The characters complement each other: a planner, a hacker, a smooth-talker.
Drift sounds like: A jarring, dissonant clash. One person says “inspiring biopic,” another says “dystopian satire.” One feels like the heroic lead, another feels like a nameless extra. One is filming a triumphant montage, another is filming a tense standoff.
The drift isn’t about doing different things. It’s about feeling the work in fundamentally different, often isolating, ways.
Step 3: Re-write The Script Together (The Fix)
Here’s where you move from diagnosis to cure. Don’t dictate. Collaborate.
Share the patterns you see without judgment. “It’s fascinating—we’ve got everything from a heist to a satire. That tells me we’re feeling the pressure and the absurdity of this phase, but maybe not all on the same page about what story we’re in.”
Then, ask the repair question:
“Given all that, if we could choose the genre for our next chapter, what would we want it to be? And what’s one small thing we could do this week to make it feel more like that?”
This moves you from abstract “mission” to tangible, collective action. Maybe the team chooses “competent crew on a tough mission.” The action becomes: “We each end our daily update with one small win, so it feels less like struggle and more like progress.”
Why This Ridiculously Simple Thing Works
It’s Human, Not Robotic. We are storytelling creatures. We understand our lives in narratives. This prompt speaks that language.
It Exposes the Unspeakable. No one will say “I feel like an extra in a movie I don’t understand.” But they will happily tell you they’re in a “confusing mystery.” It creates safe distance to tell the truth.
It’s a Fix, Not a Lecture. You’re not handing down corrected vision statements. You’re co-authoring the next scene. The buy-in is built-in.
Mission-drift a failure of shared imagination, not of communication. Your strategy doc tells people what to do. Your values tell them how. But only a shared story tells them why it matters and what it feels like to be part of it.
Your alignment is in the movie your team is living in, not in your Notion. Make sure you’re all in the same one.
Try the prompt this week. Then hit reply and tell me: what’s the genre of your team’s movie right now? I read every one.