The Hardest Alignment Problem I Have Isn't at Work

This morning, before I'd finished my coffee, my youngest son found me. "Hey Dad, are we hitting today?"

Batting practice. I told him yes. He wanted to know what time. Between 3:30 and 4:30, I said: the block we protect. That time also has to be scheduled with our gym. It's an appointment we keep, or we lose the cage.

Most people would call that a small exchange. I've started to think it's the whole job.

The Alignment I Actually Get Paid For

At work right now, I've got several projects that require me to coordinate across business stakeholders: people who don't always agree with our current strategy, who have their own incentives, their own read on the roadmap. Getting everyone rowing in the same direction on a software rollout is slow work. It's more political than it is technical. Calls run long. Meetings stack back to back until there's no room left in the day to eat a real meal or get outside and move.

I used to think that was the hard kind of alignment: the kind that took skill, patience, diplomacy.

It isn't. Not compared to what happens at home.

Getting my own family on the same page is a harder problem than getting strategic business partners to align on rolling out a new software plan. I've said that sentence to myself more than once this year, and I keep landing in the same place: if we're not all on the same page (my wife, my kids, me), you feel the contention in the house the same way you feel it in a stakeholder meeting that's gone sideways. Except there's no agenda, no facilitator, and you can't reschedule to next Tuesday.

What "On the Same Page" Actually Costs

Here's what alignment looks like in practice, not in theory: I don't just want to want to invest in my kids. I want to actually meet their needs (spiritual, emotional, physical, athletic), and none of that happens without intention. It doesn't just occur because I love them. It occurs because it's on the calendar and something else isn't.

That's what 3:30 to 4:30 is. It's not just batting practice. It's the block where I teach my son that showing up on time, doing the unglamorous repetitions, and putting in work nobody's watching is how you get good at anything: a batting stance or a career. The same effort it takes to lead a company is the effort it takes to lead off a base. I don't think you get to skip teaching one to teach the other.

But that block only exists because I defend it against everything else trying to take it: my own meetings, my own fatigue, the version of "later" that never actually arrives. Getting a business team aligned means getting people to agree on a strategy. Getting my family aligned means getting an actual hour of my actual day to go where I said it would go, every day, for a kid who is going to ask again tomorrow.

The Decision That Made This Clear

Earlier this year I had a real opportunity to relocate: Arkansas to Durham, North Carolina, for a new position. I turned it over for a while, and what I found is that the moving part didn't concern me much. What concerned me was pulling my family out of the things they already have going. Most of all, it would have torn away the time I spend teaching my youngest son a skill, because of what the new role would demand of my schedule.

I would have been successful in that position. I know how to work: the work ethic that was instilled in me is the same one I've found success from, and it would have carried me there too. The opportunity had real excitement in it, real quality-of-life improvements, and it satisfied a career decision. What it would not have satisfied is my responsibility to Christ and to my family: to build them, and to instill in them that same work ethic.

That's not a hard decision once you see it clearly. But you only see it clearly when you know what you're actually protecting.

Time Management Is Priority Revelation

I don't think time management is really about time. I think it's about priorities showing themselves. When you look at where your hours actually went this week (not where you meant for them to go, where they went), you find out what you actually value versus what you say you value. That's uncomfortable some weeks. It's also the most useful information you'll get.

That's the whole idea behind WeBetterMove: how do we move better, together, how do we come into harmony with each other instead of contention, so that everyone in the house actually knows what's happening and why. Not because a shared calendar solves your priorities for you. It doesn't. But it does make them visible. It makes the 3:30 block a thing your whole family can see and plan around, instead of a thing that lives only in your head until it gets run over by something that felt urgent in the moment.

My son doesn't need me to win every stakeholder meeting this year. He needs me at the cage at 3:30. Getting my family aligned on that (getting everyone on the same page about what actually matters and when) is still the harder work. I just don't think it's optional anymore.

Let's move better together.

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