From Sam via email:  
Can a group be aligned and effective?      - Teams and organization studies and theory suggest yes              - Companies, charters, Indian nations, Constitutional government,...
- Legal structure and precedent
 
- Must it be this way?
(How) Can a group be non-aligned and effective?     - To be effective, one must know what one is trying to achieve.
- To measure, one must know that the measurements lead to those achievements, not leading astray              - (like stack-ranking employees to get "performance")
 
- To measure properly, one must have an understanding (ever-improving, incremental) of that plan and how it will achieve.
- Without alignment, each action / exertion of energy potentially is in opposite or canceling directions / effects.
- How can collaboration happen without alignment?              - DNA from the same species can reproduce a new entity
- DNA from different species cannot reproduce a new entity
 
 Can a group be non-explicit and yet aligned? Can it grow and still be? 
 Can alignment be non-explicit and yet effective? Can it grow and still be?  
Implicit?  Once one realizes the implication, isn't it explicit?  
  A second image shared by Sam:   
  ...and response from Jack. 
 What I see:  
"At the bottom, the entire landscape as a knowledge garden; near the top, individual guilds running specific quests, where the quests define missions, guild leaders and game mechanics conspire to marshal values."  
  ...and a third image shared by Sam: