Comments

I think alignment is illusory in a turbulent operating environment. There will always be complexity and uncertainty to deal with that will throw things out of balance. So while the idea is to get people to look toward the same goal, it is a constant challenge of orchestration by organizational leaders, rather than an effort to create alignment. Leaders must look at the six key contexts of the organization--strategic, technological, cultural, intellectual, financial and leadership--and work to maintain a balanced relationship between and among them in the face of forces and influences beyond their control.

Posted by Jeff De Cagna at February 9, 2007 9:05 AM

100% Unlikely... unless (obviously) it's a life or death thing. eg We all want to leave a burning building!

The more people we have and the higher up Maslow's hierarchy we go to find motivators, the harder it gets to find something that works for everyone.

In the sense I think you meant Val, I think alighnment is a critical mass thing. Enough people can reach a tipping point of WANTING to be in the organisation and to strive for a common ambition. That's as good as it gets. But that is when the magic happens.

Posted by Chris Nel at February 9, 2007 9:41 AM

Perhaps complete alignment is not attainable, but near complete unalignment seemed to be present in several places I worked. That's because there was no clear understanding of the strategy/goals of the organization, so every group just did their atomized, siloed best to "do the right thing" according to their own interpretation. Needless to say, these companies failed.

Posted by Maureen Rogers at February 9, 2007 10:04 AM

I think alignment is usually 100% in most organisations - it's just every individual has a different opinion as to how they align themselves!!!

This to me is the line managers key role - taking the basic objectives (often a numeric target such as margin or CSAT) and translating that into ways that the individual buys into and can contribute to. Turning them into clones doesn't work. At the same time making sure that certain values and standards are delivered.

My view is that you align the company objectives to the people not the people to the company objectives!

Posted by PaulH at February 9, 2007 10:21 AM

Tom,

Alignment would stay as long as the 'Rewards and Recognition' for aligning to goals are good.
Employees should feel motivated to align themselves to the companies goals.For this they need to be rewarded and recognised.

For example Google strongly feels about innovation.It encourages employees to take on individual projects of their own liking under the company funding. Once it is found promising, the company pursues the project.

This way the company aligns the employees and inturn they are rewarded for the same.

What do you think?

Regards,
Arun.PC

Posted by Arun.PC at February 9, 2007 11:11 AM

1. Align oneself with wealthfulness & leisure whenever possible - avoid toil like one would avoid a 100' tsunami bearing down on NYC

2. Behave in a wild multiple personality way whenever possible to throw off those who'd compromise one's rightful leisure & luxury lifestyle and radical career pursuits

Posted by sean_multiple at February 9, 2007 11:23 AM

Oh no I think I have just understood and agreed with what Sean is saying............

Posted by PaulH at February 9, 2007 12:25 PM

1. And Paul - align with House of Lords' members whenever possible - for they shall have the best luxury box venues [free tickets] @ 2012 Olympics

Posted by sean_house_fan at February 9, 2007 12:31 PM

As far back as I can remember, achieving the alignment of one or another organizational unit with overall organizational objectives has been on the top-10 list of challenges that most organizations face.
On the surface, that makes sense; support the whole by developing a singularity of intent for all of the units. Unfortunately, as its continued presence indicates, we’re doing a terrible job of achieving alignment.
I wonder if we might have more success if we changed our focus away from the organizational machinery to the individuals that make up the machine and found a way for them to fulfill their needs and wants within the framework of meeting organizational objectives.

Posted by John W. McKenna at February 9, 2007 2:37 PM

Alignment is an intention. You can’t measure it, you can’t see it, but you sure can feel its absence.

Loosely defined, organizational alignment exists when the majority of employees are on the same page with one another regarding important goals, procedures, or approaches towards the business.

The areas I find most organizations lack alignment are => Work Processes, Relationships (among employees, clients, and vendors), Client Attentiveness/Responsiveness, their Sales & Marketing Effort, and in Leadership.

A leader nurtures, promotes, and sometimes controls the culture of a company. And part of that culture includes alignment. By intending to seek and focus on better alignment in the above elements (or any other), a leader will eventually get what he/she wants…but it happens on purpose, rarely by accident, and always with the input and buy in from employees.

(I have a book coming out next month on the subject…entitled Get Aligned! - How to Close Organizational Gaps. Timely subject.))
...

Posted by Jeff Pasquale at February 9, 2007 5:48 PM

I like Arun PC's Google example. I don't think organizational alignment is a useful concept and prefer to think of organizations as collections of alignments.

Projects, for example, provide good opportunities for alignment, but its less about objectives and requirements and more about peoples' beliefs, some of which are based on unconscious fear of change. What they believe is not in alignment with what they want (for themselves).

Alignment requires good inguiry, listening, mentoring and coaching skills because people are unlikely to speak honestly about what they feel. You don't get alignment by trying to change what people want, you get it by helping them change their perspective, or what they believe they "know".

Posted by mary wynne-wynter at February 9, 2007 6:32 PM

When I was a ‘worker’ on the front line I often didn’t like what I was ‘told’ to align with. Then I became a manager and I found alignment ok until I disagreed with the direction of the leaders. I found myself more often in support of the workers than leaders so for me that was the time to get out and find an alignment I did agree with. It seems to me alignment is ok if you agree with what you are aligning for.

Posted by Trevor Gay at February 9, 2007 6:56 PM

Alignment is something you have rather than something you seek....

Richard

Posted by Richard Lipscombe at February 9, 2007 7:24 PM

Alignment - is fantastic in a world where deterministic relations rule, where causality is predictable if not determined, where variety is considered waste, where, differences are considered "to be avoided", where dictatorial visions and missions to achieve the "military" objectives of the "business war" are articulated and determined upfront and organization work to accomplish the mission.
Fantastic!
However, that world we have already left behind - As one sees future is approaching us much faster than history is leaving us...the world that each one of us is co-creating, is becoming a remarkable interplay of millions of rainbows suddenly engulfing the world in mutliple dimensions. In the world where variety is the norm, in fact the variations on basic themes becoming the way an individual can create value for himself, for the organization that he works or the whole world. It is not the alignment to a specific mission or objective to achieve business goals, it is really the power to enable and inculcate the ability to be the "Variety that one wants to create" that organizations need each and every "Mind" that works for or with the organization. Alignment should be defined in such a way that "Million ideas get implemented in a year" in the enterprise...Are we aligned should be measured as how many new ideas we implemented today!!!!

Posted by Navneet Bhushan at February 10, 2007 9:42 AM

Alignment is the responsibility of the management.
The Business aligment happens when the interface between work units/employees well understood and overlaps in some situations. The repsonsibility of the management is to encourage and support these interfaces to works efficiently.

In many organizations this is where the ball is dropped. You can't put the responsibility on any one particular group or individual for the lack of superior performance. Every group or individuals meet their responsibility but the outcome will be very ordinary.

Managers tend to play defends by sticking to the policy and porcedures without excercising their discretion in fear of reprisals. The responsibility of each work unit must be well defined and their discretionary efforts should rewarded to encourage such behaviour in future.

The gap between formal reponsibility and discretionary effort by each individual is what makes the difference. Setup the organization structure to support efficinet interfaces between work units and reward discretionary efforts by individuals and teams.

Posted by Gopal Kandasamy at February 10, 2007 9:58 AM

With the rapidly changing definition of an enterprise or organization, alignment is more important than ever.

With organizations focusing on what differentiates them in the market (ie what is valued by clients), they look for partners, an ecosystem, to do those functions that, while important, are not valued highly by clients. Think of important areas such as HR, procurement, supply chain, IT operations, etc.

So how do we "align" such a diverse, global team? Certainly not with the command & control management systems of yesteryear.

1. communicate, communicate, communicate

2. clearly defined objectives (call them metrics if it feels better!)

3. values - not "family values" etc., but a corporate guide for how you will operate; then trusting those many moving parts to make decisions as low in the organization as possible using those values as the guideposts.

4. common processes where appropriate: Better to be integrated and not meet each 100% of each fiefdom's requirements than to have a myriad of processes for the same functions. This is gradually moving up the stack (ISV apps/processes for nearly every business process leading to software-as-a-service market for most common apps)

Posted by Jeff at February 10, 2007 5:35 PM

1. Seems instincts serve a much faster master - proper alignment is for my Lexus giant SUV thank you

2. One shall Google & Yahoo & eBay & YouTube understand the world for what it is & should be - a paradise & playground & funfest of abundance

Posted by sean_instincts at February 11, 2007 11:37 AM

It seems to me that "alignment" is often the thing that senior managers bemoan the lack of when a more honest phrasing might be "those stupid people won't do what I want them to do."

Posted by Wally Bock at February 11, 2007 12:12 PM

Of course I understand why organisations want alignment and consistency and uniformity but organisations generally consist of people and people generally want to work and be managed as individuals. But if organisation is aligned in terms of its fundamental goal, be it selling a great piece of kit or a terrific service or whatever, what's wrong with a bit of tension or difference or customisation or room for initiative? (Apart from the fact that this requires management at all levels to manage diversity and difference and to channel it, all of which can be tricky and isn't empirical and some people can't always do it well so it's much easier to define best practice and require everyone to follow it...)

Posted by Mark JF at February 12, 2007 4:18 AM

While I don't agree that leaders always think their people are "stupid", I do think that Wally raises a good point that leaders are often perplexed about why people don't understand what they are trying to accomplish. I feel this is directly related to the amount of time, or lack of it, from leaders who aren't clear about vision of the organization. When people are clear about the vision and they can connect their work to the vision, then they can get on board and really align their work to that vision.

Thoughts.....

Posted by Val Willis at February 12, 2007 12:02 PM

Val
While vision is important, it's dangerous to focus too much on vision as a primary leadership characteristic. It leads to a line of thinking that encourages and supports an overabundance of secondary leadership characteristics: charisma, personality, etc... that have a tendency to overshadow and hide a lack of genuine leadership ability.
It reminds me of the old joke about being pretty from a far, but far from pretty close up.
The reason managers/leaders are perplexed by the “stupidity” or better yet, by their inability to understand their followers is because they have not take the time to develop a relationship that would lead to that understanding.
Take care…
John

Posted by John W. McKenna at February 12, 2007 12:34 PM

Here's an idea some of you are going to find heretical... One reason why some people don't understand the vision of their organization is that they simply don't want to. They want to come to work, do a decent job for a stable employer and go home. They're happy to let this other stuff go straight over their head. However, make the work mean something to them in their local environment and that's another story. Give them a pleasant environment with fit-for-purpose equipment on a job where they can affect and see the end result - if a manager can do this locally but within the corporate vision, then that just might accomplish something.

Posted by Mark JF at February 12, 2007 2:41 PM

Mark viagra prescription uk

That makes perfect sense, and I wouldn't say it's anything close to heretical. The thing is, if you don't know that about them, you can not build an environment that works for them. Worse yet, if you asume that this is true for everyone and build an exclusive environment, you're going to miss out on some great people.

Take care...

John

Posted by John W. McKenna at February 12, 2007 2:52 PM

1. ... clearly then the people SHALL understand the vision in ways similar to "... the beatings shall stop once morale improves [once the vision is lovemarked] ..."

Posted by sean_vision at February 12, 2007 3:01 PM

John,

I do understand your comments. When I speak of visoion, I am thinking of that dream or ambition that the organization is trying to achieve. Whether you are in sales, or on a factory floor, one should be able to articulate the higher purpose of the organization. I found that to be true when I worked with a team in production. Once they understood the value of what they did and how it connected, you could see the light bulb. To your point, not enough time had been spent with the team face to face. I am not referring to the charismatic abilities. When a leader has great passion about where they are going, any one can feel that passion regardless of personality or how articulate they can speak. I have heard good and bad speakers, but those who had a vision and believe spoke with great conviction. Leadership is a relationship and it is about speaking to people in way that they can understand.

What is it that gets you motivated for work each day? Thanks for the comments.

Posted by Val Willis at February 12, 2007 3:12 PM

I agree with your post Val. How I express it is: Alignment in a Company is there when the full potential of its employees contribute fully to the way in which the Company wants to change the world, and achieving that full potential is enabled.

free trial viagra canada Posted by Joaquin at February 13, 2007 12:23 PM

The very act of attempting to move an organization into "alignment" has value. The process is strife with internal introspection, that hopefully, crosses all real and imagined barriers, to touch each fundamental department. In short, while the goal of moving into alignment may be ever shifting, the process of defining what alignment could and should be will starting moving forces in the right direction.

Posted by Michael Ford at February 14, 2007 5:03 PM

This is an eyeopener. Sometimes knowingly or unknowingly you tend to alienate the working staff!!

Posted by Suresh at February 16, 2007 10:45 AM

My colleagues and I do alignment training and our works is very effective in generating results for our clients, most of whom are large corporations. When we approach alignment it involves more than the feeling/engagement of employees and senior leadership. We have 4 cores aspects that we focus on. Looking at alighment in a total system way is powerful and effective.

Posted by Joel Martin at February 16, 2007 10:45 AM

Well, this one has caused some interesting comments!

Our firm certainly believes that lack of alignment behind a the WAY the company wants to approach & serve its customers causes a "drag" on the business. This internally caused drag inhibits progress. For instance it makes often makes the "internal" sale harder than the actual customer sale. We nearly always have to do some alignment work before we help companies set about that thorny challenge of "creating demand" (our core business)

Every now and then a company needs to look at the way it is operating in the market. Checking that the revenue SUPPORT teams are actually supporting the revenue PURSUIT & DELIVERY teams. Once that is clear the revenue engine tends to run more smoothly. What worked 3 yrs ago doesn't always work today. Its a common sense check.

This high level alignment is helpful. You can then build quirky, interesting, passionate, caring teams and let them thrive.

Posted by Peter at February 19, 2007 1:31 AM

Joel,

Absolutely alignment is more than feeling. Alignment is part of a total system, as you say and when any part of that system gets out of balance the effect will be felt on the others.

Valarie

Posted by Val Willis at February 20, 2007 5:27 PM

Alignment is vital to strategy execution. We all agree with that
Differences exist on whether alignment is an achievable target or not. In my experience it is, since without it strategy will not get executed.
I have been in five Fortune 500 companies (no names to protect the innocent) where personal performance targets were not aligned with or directed by the overall corporate strategy. How can strategy be executed when multiple layers down in the organization, the line worker and their managers are making up their own directions?
This is far too common of a corporate ailment. I think alignment is key.

Posted by Tim Miner at February 22, 2007 11:10 PM