The Practice
03 — Alignment Workshop
The resolution event.
One or two days in a room with the full leadership team, working through the actual fault lines until the trade-offs are named and decided.
What it is
A facilitated working session — not a presentation, not a retreat.
The Workshop is the event where a leadership team finally agrees, on the record, on who the organization is. We design bespoke spectrums around the team’s actual fault lines — the ones surfaced by the Team Assessment — and run the team through them in real time. By the end of the engagement, the trade-offs that were ambient become explicit, and the criteria that were assumed become written.
There are no generic templates. There are no theory lectures. The work is done by the team itself; facilitation is the catalyst, not the deliverable.
How it runs
Designed bespoke around your team. The shape below is typical, not fixed.
- 01
Diagnostic
2–3 weeks before
Each member of the leadership team completes the Team Assessment. We read the results, conduct interviews, and identify the three or four spectrums where the team is most divided. The Workshop is then designed around those.
- 02
Part one — Naming
Day one, on-site
We work through each spectrum in turn. Every leader positions the organization, defends the position, and then we negotiate the consolidated view. The output of day one is a Positioning Map — provisional, but specific.
- 03
Part two — Deciding
Day two, on-site
We test the Positioning Map against the live decisions the team is currently sitting on — pricing, hiring, geographic expansion, the next product. The map either survives those decisions or gets revised. By the end, both the map and the trade-offs that produced it are written.
- 04
Artifacts
Within 7 days after
The Positioning Map, the Trade-Off Manifesto, and the 90-Day Plan are delivered in their final written form. Alex remains accessible during the 30 days that follow for clarifying questions as the team puts the artifacts to work.
What you leave with
Three artifacts the team built together, defensible after the room empties.
Positioning Map
The leadership team’s consolidated view, plotted on the spectrums that matter to the organization. A single document that names where the team has agreed to stand.
Trade-Off Manifesto
The short list of what the organization refuses to compromise — and what it is consciously choosing not to do. The document brand and operations both sign.
90-Day Plan
The decisions the Positioning Map implies, sequenced into the next ninety days. Not a strategic plan — a list of resolutions, owners, and deadlines.
Who it’s for
The Workshop is a senior-team exercise. It does not work without the right people in the room.
- ✓Leadership teams of 4–12, all senior decision-makers present for the full engagement.
- ✓Organizations where the product is the people — where brand standards and operational reality have to coexist.
- ✓Teams that have completed the Team Assessment (or are willing to as pre-work).
- ✓Organizations where the cost of misalignment is visible — mid-rebrand, post-merger, ahead of a major capital decision, or with strategic debate that keeps re-litigating.
- ✓Founders preparing to step back; successors stepping in; chairs preparing the team for a generational transition.
If your team is below four, or if the senior leadership cannot all be present, talk to us — most often the right next step is the Audit or the Team Assessment rather than the Workshop.
Pricing & terms
Starting at $12,000.
- Fee
- Starting at $12,000. Includes 1 or 2 days facilitation and all travel & expenses. Quoted as a fixed engagement fee, not by the day.
- Pricing note
- Every engagement is quoted as a fixed fee.Book a Call to scope yours.
- Travel
- On-site engagements include travel from Provence. Workshops within Europe are typically a single travel day either side; North American engagements add a day.
- Pre-work
- The Team Assessment is required pre-work and is billed separately at $88 per seat (waived if you’ve completed it within the previous six months).
- After
- Alignment Stewardship is an optional retainer from $3,000 / month for ongoing access and quarterly positioning reviews.
Questions
Before you book the conversation.
Do we need to do the Team Assessment before the Workshop?
Without it, the Workshop starts from generic spectrums rather than the team’s actual fault lines. The Assessment exists so the room can spend its time on resolution, not diagnosis.
Can it be done remotely?
The Workshop is on-site. The Assessment, the Audit, and Stewardship can be remote. The Workshop’s value comes from the room — the same trade-offs land differently across a video call.
How do we prepare the team before the workshop?
You don't need to brief them beyond the logistics. The Team Assessment is the preparation — it surfaces where people actually stand before anyone has to say it out loud.
What if one member of the leadership team can’t attend?
We rebook. The Workshop’s premise is that the senior team agrees together; running it short one member produces an agreement that the absent member is then asked to ratify, which is the opposite of what we’re trying to do.
How is this different from a values exercise?
Values exercises produce documents about who the organization wants to be. The Workshop produces decisions about what the organization refuses to compromise — tested against real trade-offs in the room, not extracted after the fact.
Around the Workshop
Each engagement leads to the next.
Next Step
Talk to Alex.
A 30-minute Fit Conversation is the right next step. We’ll find out whether the Workshop is the right move for your team — and if it isn’t, which engagement is.
Book a Fit Conversation →