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# Does your team agree on what was agreed to?
- URL: https://www.builttorun.tv/does-your-team-agree-on-what-was-agreed-to/
- Published: 2026-11-04T17:27:41.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-04T17:28:19.000Z
- Author: Leighton Healey

Tell me if this has ever happened to you:

You leave a leadership meeting feeling good. The team has agreed on a change. The budget is approved. Everyone understands why it matters.

Then Monday comes.

One department treats it as urgent. Another assumes it can wait until next quarter. A third is moving ahead, but with a very different idea of what success looks like.

Everyone was in the same meeting. So what happened?

[Philip Jameson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipjameson?ref=builttorun.tv) is a change expert at [Boston Consulting Group](https://www.bcg.com/about/people/experts/philip-jameson?ref=builttorun.tv) and co-author of [*How Change Really Works*](https://www.bcg.com/capabilities/people-strategy/how-change-really-works?ref=builttorun.tv). In our conversation, we spent time on something he calls **false alignment**: a leadership team behaving as though they agree more than they actually do.

That’s worth sitting with for a moment. Everyone can support the direction and still leave with different ideas about what they’ve committed to.

Sometimes people are reluctant to disagree. In my case, being Canadian probably doesn’t help. We’re an agreeable bunch. “Understood” can sound an awful lot like “I’m fully on board.”

But often, we simply haven’t gone far enough into the details to discover where we disagree.

We agree that onboarding needs to improve. We agree that a new system would help. We haven’t agreed on what site leaders will need to do differently, how much time they’ll need, or what other work will have to wait.

Those questions eventually get answered. If we don’t work through them together, each location starts answering them on its own.

And the people doing the work are left trying to make sense of different instructions from leaders who believe they’re saying the same thing.

### Find the Disagreement Before the Rollout

Philip shared a practice from a leader who lets his team sleep on a decision, then asks each person individually the next day: “What did we agree on yesterday?”

I’d take one important initiative and ask each member of the leadership team to write down three things before seeing anyone else’s answers:

- What did we agree to change, and why?
- What will my department need to do differently?
- What happens next, and who is responsible?

Then bring the answers together.

Look for differences in priorities, timing, responsibilities, and what people believe is still optional. Pick a difference that would affect execution and work through it before sending the plan further into the organization.

### Check What Your Own Enthusiasm Might Miss

I found myself thinking about my own leadership throughout this conversation. I’m naturally drawn to the opportunity, the direction, the possibility of what we could build. It’s easy to carry that enthusiasm into a meeting and leave feeling we’ve made more progress than we have.

This gives me a practical way to check.

Before asking why the team isn’t following through, it’s worth asking whether we all left the room with the same understanding of what we committed to.

The [full conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZTbD-sr1Aw&ref=builttorun.tv) is worth your time. Philip also shares how leaders can support the person carrying a rollout and rebuild momentum when a change has already stalled.

For this week, start with one decision your team has already made. Ask what everyone heard.

Leighton