The Alignment Trap: Why Consensus Quietly Kills Momentum in Transformation Programs

The system that governs decisions in most transformation programs makes stopping work almost impossible.

Not because the work is obviously bad. The teams are capable. The problem is systemic: every initiative has a sponsor, every stream has a rationale, and each piece of work feels defensible in isolation.

Over time, this creates a familiar pattern. Portfolios grow. Capacity fragments. Delivery slows. Everyone stays busy. Very little moves.

I call this dynamic the Alignment Trap, and I see it play out in programs of every size.

This builds on earlier Industry Insights where we explored why aligning business and technology strategy matters, how organisations navigate large-scale change, and how transformation capability is built over time. The Alignment Trap sits underneath all three. It explains why even well-aligned strategies and capable teams lose momentum when decision systems prevent focus.

How the Alignment Trap forms

The trap emerges when consensus becomes the default requirement for decisions.

At first, this feels sensible. Broader input. Shared understanding. Reduced risk. In practice, something else happens. Decision forums fill up. Discussion increases. Trade-offs get deferred. No one explicitly chooses to keep underperforming work alive. The system does it automatically.

This isn’t a new observation. Research from McKinsey consistently shows that roughly 70 percent of transformation efforts fail to meet their objectives. What’s less discussed is how often an inability to stop work drives those failures, rather than poor strategy.

Behavioural science has a name for this at the individual level: escalation of commitment, the well-documented tendency for decision-makers to continue investing in a failing course of action because of what has already been spent. Barry Staw’s foundational research showed that people commit the most resources to failing efforts when they feel personally responsible for the original decision.

In transformation programs, this dynamic operates at scale. Every initiative has an owner who championed it, and every stream has a team whose identity is tied to it. So stopping anything means someone has to absorb the discomfort of admitting it didn’t work, or worse, that it should never have started.

Because stopping work requires broad agreement, the path of least resistance is always continuation. As a result, funding rolls forward, delivery teams stretch thinner, and momentum dissipates gradually.

What alignment actually optimises for

Alignment optimises for safety. It reduces visible disagreement, spreads responsibility, and avoids discomfort in the room.

What it does not optimise for is focus.

As a result, the cost rarely shows up as a single failure. Instead, it shows up as slower decision cycles, persistent dependencies, incremental delivery that never compounds, and teams spending more time explaining progress than producing outcomes.

Money stays allocated. People stay committed. Results lag. The organisation appears active. The transformation does not advance.

Why good governance doesn’t fix this

Many organisations respond by adding more structure: extra steering forums, additional checkpoints, and heavier reporting. But this increases oversight without increasing decisiveness.

As Rogers and Blenko argued in Harvard Business Review, effective decision-making depends on clarity about who is accountable for which decisions. Their research at Bain found that only about 15 percent of companies practise effective decision-making, and the most common failure point is ambiguity over decision rights.

Without clear authority, governance becomes observational. Forums record progress but do not create it. The problem isn’t a lack of process. Instead, it’s the absence of authority to stop work.

Defunding as a capability

This is the structural shift that separates programs that move from programs that stall.

The ability to defund work is not an attitude. It is a capability. And like any capability, leaders need to design it deliberately.

That means setting explicit authority thresholds so people know who can make the call. It means establishing clear ownership of outcomes so accountability doesn’t dissolve into committee. Organisations also need a regular decision cadence so reviews happen whether things feel urgent or not. And critically, leaders must grant permission to stop without blame, treating the end of work as good governance rather than failure.

When these are present, trade-offs become routine rather than political. The portfolio shrinks. Delivery sharpens. Confidence increases.

When they’re absent, every review becomes a negotiation. Nobody stops anything. And the Alignment Trap tightens.

Bain’s research on decision-driven organisations reinforces this point. Their study of 57 reorganisations found that most had no effect on performance. The ones that did had something in common: they improved the organisation’s ability to make and execute key decisions faster than competitors. Structure followed decisions, not the other way around.

How fast programs escape the trap

Programs that move well design decision systems differently. They separate input from authority.

Input remains broad. Teams gather perspectives early and surface risks explicitly. But authority stays narrow. Decision rights are clear, and escalation paths are limited.

As a result, stopping work becomes a normal outcome of review, not a failure of alignment. This changes behaviour quickly because teams focus on outcomes that matter, initiatives compete honestly for funding, and momentum becomes visible.

A diagnostic question

If you want to understand whether the Alignment Trap has taken hold in your program, ask one question:

Which initiatives would still be funded today even if you had full permission to stop them?

If the answer is “most of them,” the issue is not ambition or effort. It is decision design.

Where to start

Escaping the Alignment Trap does not require cultural change programs or stronger messaging. Instead, it requires structural clarity around who decides, what can be stopped, and how often those decisions are revisited.

That work is uncomfortable. But it is also where momentum is recovered.

Find out where you stand

Every organisation’s transformation journey is different. Whether you’re aligning strategy, navigating large-scale change, building internal capability, or exploring AI and enterprise agility, clarity is the first step.

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John Atalla is the Founder and Managing Director of Transformativ, a transformation advisory and delivery firm helping organisations accelerate their transformation programs through better decision design and execution.