In high school geometry, you learn that two points make a line. Add another point— you get a plane and you go from one dimension to two.
In general, it’s pretty obvious how you can align two things— simply draw a line from point A to point B. It becomes an issue when you have to align three or more things, since these three points will rarely fall in a straight line without some work.
For example, you could be working to align the best interests of your team, your users, and your product. In an ideal scenario, all these interests lie on the same line— they are “aligned” in the direction pointing towards a North Star. Pursuing the best interests of your team/user/product brings you closer to your North Star. And because these three things all fall on the same line, you’ll find that the success of your team leads to the success of your product and vice versa and that the happiness of your users leads to the happiness of your team and vice versa, etc.
But what happens if these things are not aligned?
Because these three things no longer form a line, but rather a plane, the definition of success is a lot more ambiguous in this situation. Movement along this plane can happen in any direction. We then enter the realm of multi-dimensionality where we have to deal with competing priorities, organizational politics, complex decision tables, locally optimal metrics.
If you prefer to keep things as simple (and one-dimensional) as possible, then alignment is critical. And so this is why I say— always be aligning.