Research on strategy replication shows that strategy templates can advance an organization’s mission across geographies by helping create strategic alignment with local conditions. However, local adaptation of templates can introduce variability that hampers growth and goal achievement. How can organizations harness local variation while maintaining coherence to their mission? This longitudinal, inductive field study of a multi-site organization examines the process of template variation within a common frame. Rather than derail an organization’s mission, template variation allows geographically-dispersed units further cohesion around common goals, while fostering alignment with local conditions by developing local interpretations. This paper contributes a grounded theoretical explanation of how template variation can allow local strengths to flourish while supporting mission cohesion—a challenge common to any growing organization.