Welcome back to Part 2 of my conversation with Sebastian Varela! If you haven't listened to Part 1, I recommend starting there — we set up the core tension between clear, top-down alignment and the flexibility that local teams need to actually get things done.

In Part 2, we dig into the "how." If too much rigidity backfires, how do you know how much flexibility to give? Sebastian's thinking on this has evolved over the years. He used to be more lax about whether teams even needed a shared framework. Now he sees it differently — having that collective vision isn't what restricts flexibility, it's what makes flexibility possible. When everyone understands the "why," you don't have to micromanage the "how."

But here's the thing that really stuck with me: without a shared vision, anything can be a priority. And when anything can be a priority, the loudest voices in the room end up driving decisions. That's not alignment — that's just politics. A clear vision gives you something to point to when you're making hard calls, so decisions are grounded in shared understanding rather than whoever talks the most or pushes the hardest.

Key Takeaways from Part 2:

• Without a shared vision, anything can be a priority — and the loudest voices end up winning
• Frameworks don't have to be restrictive; when everyone understands the vision, teams have the freedom to adapt the "how"
• A clear vision gives you something to anchor decisions to, so you're not just navigating internal politics
• The donor dimension is real — building shared understanding with local teams about constraints is essential, but that understanding has to go both ways

Want to hear how organizations can set themselves up for this kind of clarity? Subscribe to Project Design: The Good, The Bad, and The Wild so you don't miss Part 3, where we get into "designing for the design" — the organizational foundations that need to be in place before any of this works.