A Leader Report
The Alignment Read
A structured read on how this team is functioning, across the five disciplines of a high-value-creating team.
Acme Leadership Team
Prepared for Alex Chen, Chief Executive
6 team responses · Delivered July 2026
The Alignment Read · By James Correy, Holgate
Confidential. Individual responses anonymised. For the team leader's use in preparation for the debrief conversation.
Sample report. Fictional team, real format.
A letter, before the data
July 2026
For
Alex Chen, Chief Executive of Acme
A note before the report begins.
You know more about this team than this report ever will. You have watched them under pressure, in good weeks and bad, and you have felt the things the data can only point at. So treat what follows as a structured second opinion, gathered from the people who sit around your table.
Three things stood out in what they said.
1. The mandate is not the problem. This team knows what it was set up to do. Commissioning is its smallest gap, and its clearest strength.
2. The team struggles most where it faces outward. Its biggest gap by far is how it connects to the people beyond the room. In the written answers, the board, the investors, the customers, and your own people each described a different version of this team.
3. The third thing is about you as much as the team. On naming hard truths, the team split further than on anything else: some work the hard conversation through, others quietly let it go. A split that wide rarely lasts unless the leader allows it to. That is not a criticism. It is the most useful thing in here, and it is where we will start at the debrief.
Until then, hold the questions, not the answers.
James Correy
Holgate
July 2026 · Sydney
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
How to read this report
This report is diagnostic, not prescriptive.
It tells you what your team has said about itself. It does not tell you what to do about it. That conversation is what the debrief is for. With six responses, one strong view moves a line a long way.
The five disciplines
- CommissioningIs there a clear commission for this team, from those who brought it into being?
- ClarifyingIs this team aligned on its purpose, goals, roles, and ways of working?
- Co-creatingDoes this team work together generatively, producing more than the sum of its parts?
- ConnectingIs this team effectively connected to the people and wider system it needs to serve?
- Core LearningDoes this team reflect, learn and grow over time, as a team and as individuals?
Contents
02
Where the gaps are biggest
05
04
Where the team disagrees with itself
07
12
Where this team is most vulnerable
20
14
Part two: what the team wrote
22
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Reading the chart
Each indicator looks like this.
The same chart pattern repeats throughout the report. Read it once here, then every page that follows reads at a glance. The example below is this team's largest indicator gap. The numbers at the top right of every card follow one pattern: where the team is now, then the target it set, then (in teal) the gap to close. Here, 3.5 today, 8.7 target, 5.2 to close.
Q13 · Connecting
3.5→8.75.2
When this team engages externally, it tells one clear, consistent story.
Now bar
Where the team rates itself today, on a 1 to 10 scale.
Gap band
The distance between where the team is and where it says it needs to be. The wider the band, the bigger the priority.
Spread line
The range of individual "where we are now" ratings, lowest to highest (the small numbers at each end). A long line means the team disagrees about where it stands. That disagreement is often the finding.
Target mark
Where the team says it needs to be on the same scale.
Every written answer is reproduced in full in part two.
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Where the gaps are biggest
Five disciplines, ranked from biggest gap to smallest.
The biggest gap is where this team's work begins. The team's relationships with the people and groups around it are where the biggest gains are waiting.
Teal is the distance between where the team is now and where it says it needs to be.
ConnectingEngagement with the wider system
4.7to close
The team has not settled its own story. Stakeholders hear whatever left the room last.
Core LearningReflection, feedback, growth
3.6to close
Co-creatingHow the team works together
3.5to close
ClarifyingPurpose, goals, roles
3.3to close
CommissioningClear mandate from above
1.6to close
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
What stands out
Three strengths to build from. Three gaps to confront.
Where the team rates itself highest today
The three indicators the team scored highest today. Each is shown against the team's own target, not an outside benchmark.
01
The mandate from above is clear and understood.
Commissioning · Q1 · 7.5 today · 8.8 target
02
The mix of skills and perspectives is broadly right for the job.
Commissioning · Q2 · 6.0 today · 8.0 target
03
Members can put the team's purpose into plain words.
Clarifying · Q4 · 6.0 today · 8.2 target
Where the gap to target is biggest
The three indicators with the largest distance between where the team is today and where it needs to be. The number on the right is the gap to close.
01
Stakeholders hear a different story depending on who is speaking.
Connecting · Q13 · 3.5 today · 8.7 target
02
Shifts in market and organisation arrive as surprises.
Connecting · Q14 · 3.8 today · 8.5 target
03
Commitments leave the meeting without a clear owner.
Clarifying · Q7 · 4.0 today · 8.5 target
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Where the team disagrees with itself
The team's largest disagreements are not always its largest gaps.
The scores below are "where we are now" ratings only. Each row shows every individual rating on one indicator, lowest to highest. In this read, one indicator carries a genuine split: on hard truths and disagreements (Q10), ratings ran 1 to 8. The next two rows are the second and third widest, and both are tight. They are here for comparison. With six responses, one strong view moves a line a long way.
Co-creating · Q10 · Hard truths and disagreements
We name hard truths and disagreements on this team, and we work them through together.
Ratings ran 1 to 8
Mean 4.5
Commissioning · Q2 · Mix of skills
This team has the right mix of skills, experience, and perspectives to deliver on its commission.
Ratings ran 5 to 7
Mean 6.0
Clarifying · Q4 · Articulating purpose
Every member of this team can articulate, in plain language, why this team exists and what we are collectively responsible for delivering.
Ratings ran 5 to 7
Mean 6.0
Commissioning
Is there a clear commission for this team, with defined success criteria, from those who brought it into being?
6.8
→
8.4
1.6 to close
Commissioning
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Commissioning is the strongest discipline in this read. The mandate is clear. Whether the team is built to deliver it is less settled.
Q1 · Clear mandate7.5→8.81.3
A clear mandate from those who set this team up. Success defined in their eyes, not just the team's.
Q2 · Mix of skills6.0→8.02.0
The right mix of skills, experience, and perspectives to deliver.
What the data shows
The team is surer of what it was set up to do than of whether it has the right people to do it.
The open responses add what the ratings cannot see: the mandate is clear, but there is more than one version of it. It reads differently depending on who is describing it, the board, the CEO, or the team itself.
A question to sit with
If your board and this team were each asked what must be delivered this year, would the answers match?
Clarifying
Is this team aligned on its purpose, goals, roles, and ways of working?
5.0
→
8.3
3.3 to close
Clarifying
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
The team agrees on why it exists. Step by step from purpose to weekly delivery, that agreement gets weaker. Follow-through (Q7) is where it breaks.
Q4 · Articulating purpose6.0→8.22.2
Every member can say, in plain language, why this team exists.
Q5 · Shared priorities4.8→8.53.7
Shared priorities that genuinely drive how time is spent.
Q6 · Role clarity5.2→8.02.8
Roles are clear, individually and collectively.
Q7 · Follow-through4.0→8.54.5
Commitments carry clear ownership and genuine follow-through.
What the data shows
The scores step down as the work moves from idea to delivery. The team is clear on why it exists. It is much less sure that what it agrees to actually gets done.
The open responses describe how: decisions get remade in side conversations after the meeting, and plans get reshaped before the last one has had a chance to work. The team can see this happening. The commitments still slip.
A question to sit with
Where does a commitment go in this team once the meeting ends?
Co-creating
Does this team work together generatively, producing more than the sum of its parts?
4.6
→
8.1
3.5 to close
Co-creating
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Co-creating shows the widest disagreement in the read. The team cannot agree on whether it deals with disagreement.
Q9 · Ways of working4.5→8.03.5
Agreed ways of working that the team actually lives by.
Q10 · Hard truths and disagreements4.5→8.33.8
Hard truths and disagreements get worked through together, not parked or taken sideways.
Q11 · Generative output4.8→8.03.2
Output genuinely better than any individual could produce alone.
What the data shows
This is the one place the team does not see itself the same way. On naming hard truths (Q10), ratings ran the full length of the scale, from 1 to 8, the widest split in the report. Working a disagreement through and quietly parking it are both real experiences here.
The two indicators beside it show the cost. While a disagreement stays parked, people hold back their best thinking, and the team produces less together than it could.
A question to sit with
Which disagreement has this team become most practised at avoiding?
Connecting
Is this team effectively connected to the people and wider system it needs to serve?
3.7
→
8.4
4.7 to close
Connecting
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Connecting is the largest gap in the read, and the team is unusually united about it. Every indicator here sits below 4 today.
Q13 · External story3.5→8.75.2
One clear, consistent story to external stakeholders.
Q14 · Early sensing3.8→8.54.7
Shifts in market, customers, and organisation get picked up early.
Q15 · Partnering3.7→8.04.3
Value built through partnerships with other teams, not around them.
What the data shows
This holds the biggest gap in the report, and the team agrees about it. The ratings are tight and all sit well below their targets: the team knows it is under-connected to the world outside the room.
The open responses name the same relationships going quiet: the board, the investors, the customers, and the team’s own people. Each is described as getting updates rather than time.
A question to sit with
Which stakeholder would be most surprised to hear how this team describes itself?
Core Learning
Does this team reflect, learn and grow over time, as a team and as individuals?
4.1
→
7.7
3.6 to close
Core Learning
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Core Learning barely happens. The team rarely stops to look at how it is working. Delivery takes all the room.
Q17 · Team reflection3.5→7.74.2
Regular reflection on how the team operates, not just what it delivers.
Q18 · Direct feedback4.0→8.04.0
Members tell each other directly how they are showing up.
Q19 · Developing members4.7→7.52.8
People are growing here, not just performing.
What the data shows
The team keeps delivering, and rarely stops to look at how. Stopping to reflect is the lowest-rated habit on this page, and direct feedback is close behind.
The open responses describe lessons the team has paid for and not used: the weekly meeting that never changes, the plan reshaped before the last one has landed, the retrospective that never happens.
A question to sit with
Which mistake is this team currently paying for the second time?
Themes
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Beneath the numbers
What the team said.
Three themes run through the open-ended responses. They echo in the numbers, but the team's own words give the numbers shape.
Every response, unedited, in part two.
I
Things get raised, then go quiet.
The most consistent pattern in the open responses is not that people avoid conflict. It is that people have given up on it. Things get named, nothing moves, and the naming stops. The 1 to 8 split on hard truths and disagreements (Q10) fits the same pattern: some people are still raising things, others have already gone quiet. It shows up in Co-creating first and reaches every other discipline eventually.
"Things get raised. Nothing changes. Eventually people stop raising them."
II
Decisions get remade after the meeting.
Across the open questions, decisions are described as made in the room and remade outside it: side conversations, Friday-to-Monday reversals, plans reshaped each quarter before the last one has had a chance to work. Follow-through (Q7, 4.0) is the number. The words explain it.
"Make the meeting be where the decision actually happens."
III
We update the outside more than we understand it.
Asked where the blind spots are, the team pointed outward in every direction: the board, the investors, the customers, the regulator, its own people. Connecting's numbers show the same pattern. Real contact has been replaced by updates, and the team now assumes what it used to check.
"We assume we know them. We are running on data that is two years old."
Overall
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
The team in two numbers
Readiness and energy.
Team readiness
2.8
Below target
From 5.7 today to 8.5 target.
The team is not yet convinced it is set up to deliver what will be asked of it this year. Ratings ran from 4 to 7.
From the question: Overall, this team is set up to deliver what is expected of it over the next twelve months.
Team energy
3.0
Below target
From 5.2 today to 8.2 target.
Working together takes slightly more energy than it gives back. People are closer to flat than burnt out. Ratings ran from 4 to 7 here too.
From the question: This team generates more energy than it consumes. People leave interactions engaged, not drained.
A team at 5.7 readiness and 5.2 energy is not in trouble. It is also not convinced. It is still willing, and not yet sure the current setup deserves its full effort. In this read, the hesitation comes from two places: what happens to decisions after the meeting ends, and the 1 to 8 split on hard truths and disagreements (Q10).
The Alignment Read
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Where this team is most vulnerable
Until this team settles things in the room, it cannot tell one story outside it.
The numbers and the words agree. This team is candid about its pattern, but has no place where the pattern gets worked through to an end. The open responses describe the same loop again and again: raised, parked, argued again somewhere else.
What it is costing
The speed of decisions. Every decision here is effectively made twice: once in the meeting, again in the conversations after it. Stakeholders can hear the difference. Follow-through (Q7) at 4.0 and the external story (Q13) at 3.5 are the same cost measured in two places. A decision that keeps moving cannot be told the same way twice.
What this team has tried
The open responses do not describe a team that stopped trying. This team has redesigned its weekly, reshaped the quarterly plan more than once, and raised the hard things, at least at first. Each attempt stalled the same way: the pattern got named, nothing changed, and the naming stopped. The effort has gone into changing meetings and plans. The pattern that keeps defeating those changes is not about meetings or plans.
Closing
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
What to take into the debrief
One pattern. Three questions.
This team knows what it was set up to do and works hard. Its biggest gap is with the people outside the room: the board, the investors, the customers, its own people. The data says the story they hear will not settle until the team settles it in the room first.
Three questions before the debrief. Each points at something the data has named, and at something only you can answer.
Three questions to sit with before our debrief
Question OneWhat has this team quietly agreed never to resolve in the room?
Question TwoWhat do you settle in corridors that this team needed to see settled together?
Question ThreeIf nothing changes by the next board cycle, which stakeholder relationship breaks first?
Built on Peter Hawkins' five disciplines model of systemic team coaching. This diagnostic measures 17 indicators across the team's current state and aspiration, plus six open-ended responses synthesised into themes. Every written answer appears in full in part two. Individual responses are anonymised. This document is a sample: Acme Leadership Team is fictional, and the format, method, and depth match a delivered report. Holgate · holgate.au
Part two
What the team wrote
Part one is the read. This is the record it was read from: every written answer to the six open questions, in the team's own words.
Answers appear in full. Identifying details are replaced in brackets. Within each question the order is shuffled, so an answer's position never links it to a writer.
At the end of part two are the shifts people named, both for the team and for themselves, shared the same way, without names.
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q3 · Commissioning
If those who brought this team into being and hold it accountable were asked what this team must deliver, what would they say? Would everyone here describe it the same way?
"On paper we know what we are here to do. In practice, the technical roadmap and the commercial plan have not been the same picture for a year."
"We exist to deliver on the commercial plan. The board would say the same. We're aligned at the top."
"The CEO says one thing, the board says another. We deliver to whichever has been loudest in the last meeting."
"It depends who you ask. The CEO would say one thing, [another senior leader] another."
"We deliver on the operating plan. That is clear. The board would also say culture and retention. We pay that less attention."
"We deliver financial performance. The CEO would say culture too. The board would say cash and growth. They are not the same."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q8 · Clarifying
What is the one thing this team should be focused on right now that it isn't giving enough attention to? Why?
"Our voice externally. Customers hear different things from different people on this team."
"How we feel about each other. There is unprocessed history in this team."
"We do not focus enough on the cost of the patterns we tolerate."
"External relationships. We are too inside."
"Stakeholder relationships outside this room. We meet, decide, and then are surprised when others react."
"How we make decisions. Decisions get unmade between Friday and Monday."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q12 · Co-creating
What is the most common pattern that gets in the way of this team working well together? Be specific.
"Conflict happens. It does not get resolved. People go quiet. The work suffers in places nobody connects to the original disagreement."
"Things get raised. Nothing changes. Eventually people stop raising them. I have stopped raising several things."
"We avoid the disagreement that matters most. We disagree about everything else."
"We talk past each other. People nod, then do their own thing. Nobody calls it."
"We are individually strong. We do not really decide together. We decide in parallel."
"We avoid each other when it gets hard. [two members of this team] have not really talked in months."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q16 · Connecting
Which stakeholder relationship is this team's biggest blind spot right now? What would change if we addressed it?
"Our investors. We give them what they ask for. We do not ask them what they actually need to see."
"Our regulator. We update them. We do not have a relationship."
"The board. We update them. We don't really know what they need from us next quarter."
"Engineering leadership outside this team. They are losing trust in our priorities."
"Our people. We talk about them as a function. We do not actually know what is happening in their teams."
"Top customers. We assume we know them. We are running on data that is two years old."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q20 · Core Learning
What is a mistake or missed opportunity this team keeps repeating? What would need to change for that pattern to break?
"We hire too late. We promote too late. We are always behind on people."
"We reshape the same plan every quarter. We never finish anything before we start the next thing."
"We lose good people six months after they realise the team is not actually as good as the brand says it is."
"We keep relitigating decisions in side conversations. The decision in the room is rarely the real one."
"We keep underestimating delivery time. We never run a real retro on why."
"We keep saying we'll change how we run our weekly. Nothing changes. I think people have stopped expecting it to."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Q23 · Overall
If you could change one thing about how this team operates, what would it be and why?
"Stop chasing every new idea. Finish what we started."
"Be honest with each other, even when it is uncomfortable, especially when it is."
"More honesty in the room. Less politeness."
"Get ahead of people decisions instead of reacting to them."
"Make the meeting be where the decision actually happens."
"Run a proper retrospective once a quarter. Actually look at why things slipped."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Part two · continued
The shifts the team named
At the end of each discipline, the questionnaire asked each person two things:
- The shift they would make in themselves.
- The shift the team most needs to make.
Both are below, grouped by discipline, without names.
Commissioning
What the team needs to change
"Pick a commission and stop relitigating it."
"Stop oscillating between board and CEO definitions."
"Stop assuming we all answer to the same picture."
"Treat culture as part of the commission, not an extra."
"Stop nodding along to a plan that does not add up."
"Resolve the technical and commercial mismatch in the brief."
What each of us named to change in ourselves
"Hold the line on what we actually committed to deliver."
"Hold the team to the operating plan I signed off."
"Press the board harder for what they actually want."
"Press for a single picture of what we are here to do."
"Be more direct when I think the brief is wrong."
"Push back when the brief is technically not feasible."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Clarifying
What the team needs to change
"Stop assuming everyone is working to the same priority."
"Stop pretending the priority list is real."
"Force the hard conversation about which priority is actually first."
"Make the list shorter and live with it."
"Stop letting commitments slide between meetings."
"Hold each other to commitments after the meeting ends."
What each of us named to change in ourselves
"Stop relying on the plan being self-explanatory."
"Push for a smaller list of priorities."
"Push back when priorities are vague."
"Be clearer about non-negotiables."
"Stop signing up for what I cannot deliver."
"Say no to things that are not on the priority list."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Co-creating
What the team needs to change
"Pick a hill, work it together, do not avoid."
"Stop pretending we agree when we don't."
"Process the history, then move on."
"Stop walking away from the hard conversation."
"Stop letting peer-level conflict run for months."
"Decide together, then represent together."
What each of us named to change in ourselves
"Raise the disagreement that matters, not the safe ones."
"Name the avoided thing in the moment, not after."
"Stop being the one who keeps the peace."
"Speak up the first time, not the fifth."
"Get into the room with peers I have been avoiding."
"Speak with one voice externally even when I disagree internally."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Connecting
What the team needs to change
"Treat investors and the board like real people, not boxes to tick."
"Build relationships before we need something."
"Map the stakeholders for real."
"Treat staff like a stakeholder, not an output."
"Have one shared list of who matters."
"Build a shared map of who matters externally."
What each of us named to change in ourselves
"Spend more time with the people who actually do the work."
"Update my picture of the customer, not the one in my head."
"Get out of the building more."
"Build the regulator relationship before I need it."
"Bring [a function] view of stakeholders into the room."
"Spend less time in the building."
Part two
Acme Leadership Team · July 2026
Core Learning
What the team needs to change
"Reflect on why people leave, not just on retention numbers."
"Build feedback into the rhythm of the work."
"Build a habit of in-the-moment feedback."
"Run real retrospectives."
"Reflect on losses, not just wins."
"Treat people as a strategic priority, not an HR queue."
What each of us named to change in ourselves
"Document what we learn from misses."
"Give feedback in the moment, even when senior."
"Slow down enough to look back."
"Schedule reflection. Otherwise it does not happen."
"Promote earlier, hire earlier."
"Ask for feedback I have not been asking for."