Total Organizational Alignment...A Prerequisite To Becoming and Sustaining a Great Company

Over the last few decades our industry has become even more sophisticated in implementing and executing on an identified strategy in such a way that will sustain performance on a high level of excellence. However, in all companies, there are still ongoing challenges, obstacles and struggles that impede implementation and execution and prevent companies from consistently achieving their goals in several key performance indicators.
In my work with companies, one of the biggest challenges I have seen, regarding companies being able to perform on a level of sustained excellence, is a lack of organizational alignment. Since employees/team members/colleagues are tied together by their work and management systems, then the finance department, HR, Marketing, Operations, Sales, IT, systems, policies, philosophies, targeted goals and even procedures must be tied together in strategic planning, implementation AND execution in order to achieve the goals and objectives of a growing and prosperous company. This is a bit simplistic but this is Organizational Alignment and if we are to have a chance at achieving it, we have to look deeper into its components and how to achieve it. We also need to look at what can happen if we don’t achieve it. It is a significant organizational behavior issue.
So, what happens in a company that does not have organizational alignment? Or, maybe better stated, why does a company need organizational alignment? Here are a few critically important reasons:
• To give a potentially good idea the best chance of being tested out in a non-biased, non- political internal environment. Many good ideas are labeled bad or as already having been “tried before” prior to a testing period or demonstration project. This sometimes happens because of lack of alignment in the organization. Inside non-aligned companies, people are not only not thinking together, they aren’t even working together in a manner that would involve all necessary parties/departments. Sometimes people in somewhat dysfunctional companies start out to prove an idea to be bad as opposed to testing it or analyzing it for its possibilities. Good ideas in non-aligned companies can sometimes go the way of a snowball in the hot sun.
• To implement change and/or to execute on a new initiative. Change has a cascading or domino effect. One of the major steps in implementing change is to first prepare the organization for that change. To properly prepare the entire organization for change, there has to be boundary-less, cross-departmental, multi-level, multi-functional work with and between leaders to plan out the whole change process. From the beginning of when the discussion of implementing change begins to the very “end” of the implementation of that change, every business discipline has to be involved; HR, Marketing, Finance, Operations, Technical and Sales. If not, there will be situations where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing and there will be
cascading effects of the implementation of that change that were not considered nor planned for and that can cause serious problems. Change requires change agents throughout the organization/in all parts of the company. These are the people who embrace it, promote it and enable it. Change can only be successfully implemented if everyone is pulling in the same direction and working together toward the goal of any particular change. This calls for organizational alignment. Companies who operate otherwise have exhausting, draining and sometimes harsh work environments.
• To ensure the company is doing more than merely surviving. Nearly 40 years, IBM ruled the up-and-coming world of the PC. However, they did not make the necessary changes and lost out on the opportunity of being the leader of the PC revolution. They went from being the most profitable company in the world in 1985 to losing $8 billion dollars in quarterly losses in 1993. Part of this was due to a lack of organizational alignment. Leaders disagreed on the need to change. There was a lack of collaboration inside the company. Some even held on to the myth of “if it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it”. A 19 year old programmer named Bill Gates saw this coming. The rest is history.
Companies not aligned can have the following problems to one extent or another:
• Departments not working together. This can happen knowingly or unknowingly in a non-aligned company.
• Power struggles. This can happen between departments, between managers and employees, between managers and between employees.
• Poor service. Those who are directly serving the customers are not properly being served by those who don’t directly serve the external customers. This is almost always followed by the external customers not being well-served.
• Learning deficiencies. Non-aligned companies are not true “learning organizations”. There is serious lack of cumulative learning and collective learning.
• Too much redundancy. In larger companies, different divisions sometimes are working on the same issue or project and no one knew.
• In addition, where there should be redundancy, there is none. How can a company, for example, have a good Disaster Recovery program without alignment? How can they even create one without some sort of alignment?
• Territorial battles are common inside the company. The competition doesn’t have to fire a shot in the worst cases of non-alignment.
• Performance suffers. People become more interested in politics than performance. Managers and department heads become more interested in maneuvering than managing.
• Lost synergies and economies of scale, wasted resources and squandered opportunity. Opportunities are lost because strengths are not combined. Synergies are lost when people don’t work together. Resources are wasted because procedures
are not condensed. Issues are sort of stumbled through. Windows of opportunity close before they are entered.
So, what does organizational alignment look like? It is not necessarily “committee work”. It is not even necessarily a democracy. It is not always a unanimous decision. It is not merely having a steering committee. It is more closely related to consensus if we define consensus as input being heard and given genuine consideration but not always being incorporated.
Alignment is Total Team Involvement. It requires both leadership and followship. So, what are some strategies to achieve organizational alignment?
• Communication. The foundation of aligned organizations is communication. People know and understand what the next person does, at least to a degree needed to properly work together. They are like a championship team. There are individual as well as team goals but their goals are compatible. People know what they are doing, why they are doing it and how their work affects others. Inside aligned companies, people work with greater efficiency, more focus and they tend to work together. They work in concert. In addition, voices from all over the company are heard, not filtered. This is not accomplished by merely having a suggestion box. Communication is full circle.
• Common-visioning. Employees work together when they see the end result in their mind’s eye. They need to know the goals and objectives. They need to know the corporate mission. You cannot aim at the target if you can’t see it. When everyone is aiming at it, it is more likely to be hit.
• Use of a strategic principle. A strategic principle is a concept to help steer the company in the right direction. It is a memorable and actionable phrase that communicates a company’s strategy throughout the organization. Employees are encouraged to act within the SP and in light of the SP without fear of backlash. A SP is more action- oriented than a mission statement or set of values. A SP is meant to get people to act quickly by giving them explicit guidance to make moral and strategically consistent choices.
• A supportive culture and work environment. It has been said that employees will care how much you know when they know how much you care. If the culture of the company does not support the goal of employees being happy and productive, then they won’t be. All the incentives in the world or the strategy du jour will not make up the difference.
• Team work. Aligned organizations have identified impediments and missing ingredients in the company that kill motivation and fragment the team. Business are built by building people. It is also the job of leaders to match talent and personal constitution with job function.
• Organizational structure. Structure includes the organizational chart/reporting relationships, compensation methods, recognition and reward programs, training,
safety, facilities, benefits, work hours, equipment, etc. All of these things must support organizational alignment.
• Leadership. In every case, lack of alignment is a management/leadership issue. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Alignment requires leaders that pull (not push) people along with their own work performance and level of confidence.
• Placing a high value on individuals and on every role. We should look at our org charts from left to right instead of top to bottom. Everyone is valuable. To some degree, the only difference is a functional difference. It is not helpful to have the view that everyone is “replaceable”.
• Change and continual improvement. To keep people engaged at the highest level, a company needs to be constantly improving with new ideas and levels of performance. There is no such thing as status quo. Improvement is the end result of alignment.
Alignment creates a marriage between the dreams of employees and the drive of companies to win. Alignment makes a company capable of capitalizing on the strengths of its people. It makes a company more than competitive.
-Greg Clendenin
CEO, The Clendenin Consulting Group