By Annabel Graham, Executive and Team Coach, and Director of Successful Training, Leadership & Coaching Consultancy.
It’s approaching the half year for many businesses, so how aligned is your organisation? Are all your employees and teams focussed on the right things that will take the business forward, make a difference and deliver your strategy?
If I spoke to the most junior person and I asked them “why do you do what you do, and how does that help the business”? Would they be able to tell me?
I find this is rarely the case in most of the organisations I work with. But it is crucial if we want to focus our teams in the right direction.
McKinsey define Organisational alignment as: “Bringing meaningful purpose, practical strategies, and goals together, making an organization’s aspirations more credible – and more likely to be achieved.”
When we do this we find that people focus on the right things, work together as a team, achieve more and increase performance and profit.
The most famous anecdote about this comes from JFK’s visit to the NASA space centre in 1962. President Kennedy noticed a janitor carrying a broom. He interrupted his tour, walked over to the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?” “Well, Mr President” the janitor responded, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
What if all your colleagues could be so clear? Remember, at this point NASA was only four years old, and had 8,000 employees.
We rarely see this in organisations as our strategies are often complicated, poorly communicated and shared with a narrow audience in a format that doesn’t make sense and link to what people do day to day. We don’t bring it alive for people, and really link it back to their day jobs so they understand how they can make a difference and where they need to be putting their focus.
How then do we create strategic alignment?
When working with senior teams, I often use a model called VICTOR which measure the strategic alignment in your business. It has six key stages that all need to be put in place to enable organisations to align their vision with their actions. It also has a questionnaire to diagnose where you are currently, and what you need to gain clarity, communicate effectively and create better alignment through all teams.
STEP 1: Vision – Where are you going?
What do you want your business to achieve in five years, 10 years? What is your goal, what will make your unique? How will you stand out from the crowd? You need to hone this idea, test it and get feedback on it from your teams.
Once you are clear on this then, review your purpose. Does everyone in your business know why what they do is important and are they pulling in the same direction? If not – define this with them, so they understand the contribution they make and how every team forms a vital part of the pyramid which forms your business.
STEP 2: Incentive – Why should your team deliver the vision?
The next step is to communicate and engage hearts and mind. Engaging employees can be one of the biggest challenges. Creating the passion within them to follow and deliver your purpose and vision is key. Ensure your messaging has the following:
Clarity – make the communication jargon free, and in simple language everyone understands.
Consistency – all your key leaders need to be on message saying the same thing. No outliers!
Commitment – by the time you are sick of saying it, everyone is just getting the message. So keep at it for another six to 12 months and find ways to link back to the salient points in all your briefings, publications, team meetings and one to ones.
STEP 3: Capability – Do your people have the right skills?
Take a long look at the people in your business: who do you need to engage? Who do you need to spend time with? Who you need to develop? Who will drive your business and make it great and who doesn’t care. What conversations does this mean you need to have?
If you are creating a strategy which looks out three to five years ahead, you need a people plan to go with this, as you need to be anticipating the capability and skills you need in advance. Even more so with the rapid changes AI is bringing to the workplace. These plans need to be at every level of the business, and in every team. An annual process isn’t enough.
If you don’t have the right capabilities to deliver your vision you will create anxiety amongst your team members, which will ultimately impact on wellbeing and mental health.
STEP 4: Tools – What do you actually need to get the job done?
What do I mean by tools? I mean any resource that enables your people to do their jobs effectively, and causes frustration when it doesn’t exist. Here are a few we don’t get right.
Time: Are we giving people the time to do their jobs? Are we giving people our time to have the right conversations, build relationships and develop them?
Money: Are we spending the right money in the right place to achieve our aims? If not – how do we re-prioritise? Remember you always have budget, just not always in the right place!
Technology and environment: Are people able to work how they need to work, with whom they want to work, when they want to work?
STEP 5: Organisation – Do you have a plan of action?
Does the ‘What we are doing’, linkback to the ‘Why we are doing it’. Does every function in the business have goals that feed into the vision built around key strategic themes? Are there outcomes and measures in place that will allow you to track your progress?
These themes then need to be reflected in all department plans, right down to the individual. Then the plan relates to the day to day and everyone goes in the right direction.
STEP 6: Reflect – Are you on track and how do you need to adapt?
We have to be consistent, repeat the message and role model the behaviours. We also have to review and adapt regularly, as the environment will change. Without the follow up we won’t see when we are off course, so regular review points are necessary, using the measures and outcomes you have agreed.
So will these six steps create alignment? Maybe.
They will enable you to create alignment if you follow all of them, but- if you miss a step, or don’t complete them fully then there is a consequence. So could you do with that questionnaire to check your alignment?
If you would to find out more about the VICTOR model, get a copy of the questionnaire or review this with your team contact Annabel via LinkedIn, annabel@successfultraining.co.uk, or visit www.successfultraining.co.uk