Organisational alignment is a key way for competitive organisations to stay ahead of their rivals and be innovative in business. And it starts with the leadership team.
What is Organisational Alignment?
It’s when your entire organisation, from top tier leaders to entry-level colleagues, shares the same organisational vision, mission and values for your company. Keywords here are communication, leadership by example and inclusion. This is vertical alignment. The other dimension is horizontal alignment, when the various functions and departments work effectively together and key words are collaborative working, accountability and transparency.
These are familiar words here at SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL. We work with multiple sized organisations to help them outline a shared sense of purpose both at a strategic and operational level. From this shared sense of purpose comes alignment.
Successful organisational alignment begins with aligning the senior leadership team and here is a six-step approach:
1. Identify a Common Purpose and Values
By identifying and agreeing why your organisation exists and the ‘way things work around here’ you’re making it more straightforward for your teams, customers and investors to completely understand who you are. From here comes your strategy and your brand identity.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL understands the importance of developing a strategic plan and strong brand identity that can be communicated to the world from the top down. We can work with your leadership team to facilitate a strong sense of common purpose and values that can be fostered throughout your entire organisation.
2. Fostering Ownership
It’s a simple mistake to make. We’re talking here about alignment being something that’s not just on your website and intranet, but, instead, what your organisation is living and breathing, day in day out. If the leadership team doesn’t “own” your alignment, then it is unlikely that employees, customers or investors will do so either.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL believes that to have successful organisational alignment, the leadership team has to inspire values-driven leadership, top-down and bottom-up.
3. Share Goals and Relate
Leadership teams in your organisation may believe that everyone in the organisation knows what the KPIs are and short and long-term goals, but is that true? Today’s employees want to see the purpose of what their leaders are asking them to do.
Given there are more millennials in the workplace than ever before (35% and rising), it’s essential for leaders to ensure this valuable cohort feels they can relate to older generations. Yet a PWC report into millennials at work found that 38% of millennials think the older senior management colleagues do not relate to the younger workforce.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL can work with your top-tier leaders to create an effective internal communication system to keep everyone informed about KPIs, quarterly priorities and longer-term goals.
4. Remove Obstacles
You might understand the importance of organisational alignment but the entire organisation, starting with your leadership team, needs to be in sync about the process, to avoid hitting obstacles.
For example, unless the strategy and organisational culture are aligned, you might focus on one at the expense of the other.
SERVICEBRAND GLOBAL will help you identify the obstacles faced by your organisation so that your entire leadership team stays fully aligned every step of the way.
5. Unity and Accountability
There must be unity and accountability amongst the leadership team in articulating the common purpose, visualising it and sharing it with the rest of the organisation. Each member of the team has to own all defined outcomes, and help drive and communicate them.
Our work with leadership teams across large and small organisations is focused on driving measurable success that’s aligned with the organisation’s brand and values.
6. Transparency From the Top
For any leadership team to achieve complete company alignment, it must take a transparent approach from the top down. Clarity about the purpose, vision, values, and mission are the critical first step.
We can work with your leadership team to encourage employees to buy into shared organisational goals. By doing this, you’ll be increasing employee productivity and engagement and profit.
Before We Go
We can help you achieve organisational alignment in your leadership team. Get in touch with us today and find out how we can help you.