Exploring Your 'Alignment Landscape'

​Aree Bly is an alignment coach for analytical minds, having spent much of her career as a health insurance consulting actuary in the United States. She has a great love for the outdoors – spending time in nature, and she lived for a few years in Brazil! These days, Aree is a regular podcast guest and speaker (including a TEDx talk in New York City, where she spoke about resetting in a new direction). She helps individuals and teams to identify and navigate their values, strengths and skills to create the success they really desire. In this article, ‘alignment ally’ Aree describes her ‘alignment landscape’ model, drawing on her own analytical experiences: 

"I have both said and heard 'I am too analytical to fully follow the voice within'. Sometimes it comes out as 'I am too analytical to clearly hear the voice within'. In either case, there is another way to navigate into and through a successful career. One in which the success you create is also sustainable. 

Navigating your own career and the challenges that you meet along the way implies that there is a map that you can follow. That map is called your alignment landscape. 

Alignment, Learning, Proficiency & more
You operate best and contribute most effectively when your work is aligned with both your current skills and your values. In your alignment zone, with everything falling into place, you can perform every time.

When you know that you have the skills and talents at hand to tackle an upcoming project or solve the problem that a client is facing, you can approach the job confidently. All you need to do is reach into your toolbox and - voila - a hammer in hand ready for the nail. You don’t even need to think about it. The skills are there, honed and ready to be used. Read more to continue exploring the features of the alignment landscape with me, including this map’s particular orientation and contours.

The second element to make success easier is being aligned with your values and natural strengths. When the work you are doing lines up with your core values, it is like lubrication that keeps the machine working. Sitting in alignment with your values puts you at ease. It keeps distractions at a minimum because you are not concerned with the discomfort of being out of alignment.

And truth be told, although you are contributing quite a bit when in alignment, there is not a lot of growth going on. And growth is what will take you to the next level. 

Luckily, there is an area on the map ideal for learning. It is the place where you can pick up new skills and knowledge. It is an area where you can develop a new talent. This all happens most effectively and efficiently when you are staying in line with your values. Yet you may notice some fear and doubt here. It is the fears and doubts that show you where you need to learn a new skill. They highlight the gaps that you can intentionally fill. Those fears and those doubts are at the opposite side of your current skill set.

Of course it is unrealistic to think that you will always have the skills that you need or feel no friction with your values. You know that there are times when you cannot avoid being in a situation or on a team that does not line up with your values. If one of your core values is curiosity yet the project you're working on has tight timelines that do not give you the space to follow your curiosity, you may feel a little friction in that situation. Or if you work best when collaborating with others yet the project at hand is one in which you have to work solo, again that friction and discomfort may be showing up. You can still show up proficiently and capably complete what is required. When you have the skills, even though you are outside your values, you are in a proficient zone. 

The danger zone rears its head when you don't have skills AND you are also out of alignment with your values. It is incredibly easy to feel stuck in this situation. Because you are feeling friction with your values, it slows down your ability to learn the skills that you need. You find yourself expending energy and being distracted by the misalignment with your values. You have little energy left to learn or change your paradigm to move to another, more beneficial, area. Where we have built our resilience, we can survive for a while in the danger zone, but too long and it can lead to burnout.

In fact there are four distinct areas in the alignment landscape. Your personal areas are defined by your unique combination of skills and the talents as well as your set of values and natural strengths. If you put the four on paper, the landscape would look like this: 

Navigating your Alignment Landscape
Looking at the alignment landscape as a map of where you are today allows you to intentionally guide yourself into the right zones at the right times. You can better understand what has put you in the danger zone so that you can start to move yourself into a more productive zone. You can consciously create an environment for optimal learning or maximum productivity. 

So, how much time should you be spending in each quadrant? That depends on what role you are in, what challenge you are facing, and what you are targeting for your next career chapter. The two underlying tenets are 
1) minimizing your time in the danger zone, and
2) intentionally targeting time in the other zones. 

Navigating means developing resilience to be able to pull yourself out of the danger zone and get traction when in a better place. Navigating means establishing boundaries and positive mindsets. 

Navigating also requires recognizing how your landscape changes over time. As we grow in our career, our fears and skills change. Even our values and innate strengths can shift, although much more slowly.

Navigating with others
You don't travel through your career alone. Whether you are on a team, leading a team, or even a solopreneur, you are constantly interacting with others. Involving others opens the door to more effective and efficient navigation. 

Teams can layer the landscapes for each member. Common values can be leveraged, skills optimized, and the right people can be put in the right roles. Each project can be deliberately managed: leaders can help each team member define the right mix of zones to create success for the project and the individuals. 

All too often, leaders let seniority or title dictate the role that each individual plays. Yet when you take a step back and recognize how the individual's unique alignment landscape layers with the others on the team, a new map appears. You can better leverage the unique skills and contributions of each individual." 

The alignment landscape is based in facts, not in intuition from 'the voice within'. 
How could you use this tool to step confidently into your next challenge?”
AREE BLY