Ever walk into a meeting where half the room was voluntold to attend? Tired, overwhelmed, and secretly hoping for a quick escape.
Meanwhile, the other half is buzzing with excitement and energy?
If you’ve facilitated or led anything with mixed-interest participants, you’ve likely asked: How do I get this group aligned so we can actually move forward together?
Let’s break down a simple and effective technique for creating alignment, even when people show up with drastically different intentions.
Start With Shared Intent: A Novel Use for ChatGPT
Here’s a practical (and slightly cheeky) strategy. If you’re feeling bold, grab your phone, open up ChatGPT’s voice feature, and say something like:
“Hey ChatGPT, I’m going to walk around the room and ask each person to share their intention for being here today. I’d like you to take those and craft a unified purpose statement for our meeting.”
Will it work? Technically, yes. But even if you don’t use ChatGPT literally, the concept is solid.
When you have 10 people in the room with 10 different goals, you don’t have one meeting, you’ve got 10. That’s where conflict brews. One person’s trying to wrap things up, while another wants to dive deep into the details. It’s misalignment in motion.
Aligning Intention: the Most Overlooked Openers for a Meeting
A quick pause to align intention can be one of the most transformational purpose-focused “icebreakers” for team meetings. Say to your group:
“You’ve blocked this time in your calendar. What intention would make this time well spent for you?”
Have them write it down. Or, for a more visual and tactile approach, hand out the We! Engage Cards and ask:
“Choose an image or quote that represents the intention you have for our time together.”
This silent, individual selection acts as a quiet invitation to take ownership, something that can be more engaging than any high-energy icebreaker.
Try the Mitosis Method: From “Me” to “We”
Once individual intentions are set, the next step is what Chad calls the Mitosis Method a play on cell biology.
Here’s how it works:
- Pair up: Two people share their intentions.
- Merge: They combine those two intentions into one they both can agree on.
- Join forces: Those pairs then join with another pair (2 + 2 = 4) and repeat.
- Scale: Depending on group size, continue merging until you get unified intentions in groups of four or eight.
This collaborative process brings together diverse personal goals into a shared anchor that can be referenced throughout the meeting, workshop, or offsite. When disagreements arise, revisit this anchor:
“Hold on. Remember our shared intention? Are we still working toward that?”
Nine times out of ten, that question recalibrates the group and moves things forward constructively.
Bonus Tip: Identify Your “Coalition of the Willing”
Not everyone will be on board from the jump and that’s okay.
One of my university clients had a brilliant phrase for her early adopters: The Coalition of the Willing. These are the team members who are already leaning in. Their enthusiasm can be contagious.
Before your next gathering, tap into your “coalition.” Invite them to help with pre-meeting conversations or even personalized invitations to others. Their energy and social proof often generate organic buy-in from the rest of the group.
Sometimes, it’s not about convincing everyone. It’s about getting the right few people involved early to create enough inertia or enough have a splash to have a ripple effect.
From Disconnected to Aligned: Create Buy-In Before the Meeting Starts
If you’re looking to reduce resistance and increase engagement, start by inviting intention before anyone even enters the room. A simple question like:
“What is one thing that would make this session be worth your time?”
…can spark clarity, connection, and forward motion.
Need more tools to help with alignment, intention setting, and authentic connection? Snag a Connection Toolkit. You’ll be amazed how much faster a group can move, communicate, and make decisions once relatedness is solidly established.
