I’ve seen, up close and personal, some organizations that demonstrably were lacking alignment. This manifested in various ways. The question then becomes, what do you do to remedy? What leads to achieving alignment?
So, many years ago I spent a summer working on a large engineering floor. The group I was assigned to finally told me to slow down, that I was making them look bad! In another firm we were acquired by, they weren’t happy with sales and fired the team, but then hired the leaders responsible for the broken practice to create a new process. My own previous ISP had a great app, and not only broke their implied promise but lied to me. My current ISP is more human when you can get through to them (and their app is horrid).
What’s common is a lack of alignment across the organization. I’ve eventually come to expect pockets of inefficiency in most organizations (I wonder how any of them make money!). Now, it can be bad management on the part of a particular leader, or miscommunication between units. The main point I see here is the lack of effective communication. It can be just within a team, or upwards to a business unit or community of practice, or between business units.
Look, there are lots of ways to go wrong. Lack of measurement, insufficient resources, culture hiccups, and more. One clear barrier, however, that can solve some of the others, is communication. Even before collaboration, which is better, is communication. We need to be social in appropriate ways.When we have trust and safety, we can towards transparency. When we know what others are doing, we can can work in coordination. We can show our work, we can cooperate, and even collaborate.
Achieving alignment is a useful tool for businesses, but it isn’t automatic. You need to work at it. One of the ways is to work to creating an environment where people are sharing. When you do, the benefits emerge. At least, that’s how I see it. How about you?
BTW, our final LDA debate this year will be tomorrow, December 20, at 1PM ET (10 AM PT), on lying, which is directly tied to transparency! Come for the fun, stay for the learning.
Leave a Reply