Pillar #1: Alignment, by David Bork
David Bork
May 5, 2025
“Alignment” is learning a process of values clarification for yourself, and then learning how to balance yours with those of other family members.
Summary
When family business members are in alignment with values, principles, strategies, and goals, nothing can stop them from achieving both relational and financial prosperity. Family alignment, by definition, is an inside job and can manifest through your newly refined communication skills.
Re-Imagining Relationships For Families In Business
Four essential pillars form the foundation of lasting family business success. When these pillars are intentionally built and sustained, they support the continuity of both family relationships and business ownership across generations. This series provides the tools, frameworks, and guidance needed to strengthen these pillars and build long-term resilience within your family enterprise.
This is an introduction to Pillar #1: Alignment. Download or read the publication using the link below.
Introduction
This pillar involves learning a process of values clarification for yourself and then learning how to balance your values with those of other family members to achieve alignment. Such alignment is the very foundation of a values-based operation. The greater clarity you have about who you are as a person and what motivates you, the greater the impact on your ultimate success and happiness.
Research on Values-Based Leadership (VBL) and VBL-led companies has demonstrated that when family business owners are clear about their values, those values become the guiding principles for the operation of their business. Businesses operating in this manner are more profitable, and they demonstrate a higher level of satisfaction among owners, non-family leadership, and employees.
Family alignment can produce profound results. It is a force multiplier. When family business members are in alignment with values, principles, strategies, and goals, nothing can stop them from achieving both relational and financial prosperity. Family alignment, by definition, is an inside job and can manifest through your newly refined communication skills.
When you next see geese flying in a V formation, you might like to consider what science has discovered about why they fly this way. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following. Flying in a V formation adds at least a 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own. A goose out of formation immediately feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation, and another goose flies point (it pays to take turns doing hard jobs!).
If we have the simple sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
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People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they need to go more quickly and easily by travelling on the uplift of one another.
Finally (now I want you to get this), when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshots and falls out, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with the ailing goose until it is either able to fly or until it dies; then they launch out on their own or join another formation to catch up with the group.
