By Laura Stack
I
n business, we measure success by the bottom line, or as I’ve
heard some people put it, “we keep score with dollars.” When
you get right down to it, profit represents the combination of
drive, work and efficiency we call high productivity. Staying
busy isn’t enough; we have to stay busy at what matters, in ways
that move us toward well-defined goals and objectives.
I’ve dedicated my 20-year career to helping my corporate
clients improve employee performance and execute on strategy.
I’ve stressed the value of time management skills, productivity
training, to-do lists, task triage and avoiding distractions. I’ve
pointed out how individual empowerment, effective teamwork
and a positive workplace atmosphere all contribute to the kind
of employee engagement that yields high levels of both produc-
tivity and profit. All of these topics are important.
But sometimes you have to go back to basics to really
understand some key principles that lay the foundation for all
work that occurs in a company – a basic business reality that,
while often forgotten, governs all levels of productivity at work –
the need for strategic alignment.
Top to Bottom
Good strategic alignment consists
of practices that connect organizational
strategy with employee performance as
fully and as directly as possible. When you
properly align your organizational struc-
ture, all employees act as strategic enablers
of business, company policy, mission and
vision, working from the same standards
toward the same ends. This can only
happen when upper management willingly
shares its goals with everyone and sets up
procedures to make sure everyone stays on
track.
Once-a-year performance reviews
just don’t cut it. On the other hand, too
much day-to-day control can become
micromanagement – the exact opposite
of productivity. In any case, performance
reviews relate specifically to one person’s
job, not company strategy as a whole. So
how do you find a happy medium? How do you connect each
employee’s execution of their work to the organization’s overall
vision, in order to create a comfortable level of strategic align-
ment resulting in profit, growth and all-around business success?
How do you ensure that each employee, sitting at his or her
desk, is working on exactly what they should be doing to drive
successful strategy execution?
Communication
Like so many other things, successful
alignment starts with good communication.
Suppose your boss gestures vaguely at the
horizon and says, “Our goal is to climb that
mountain over there.” Which mountain does
he mean? Does he have a method and schedule in mind? You’d better
ask if he doesn’t clarify. It surely won’t help the bottom line if you
end up climbing the workplace equivalent of Pike’s Peak in a month
when he wanted you to tackle Everest in a week.
That may sound a little silly, but I know of something similar
(though much less extreme!) that happened to an archaeologist as
he directed the survey of a gas pipeline corridor. One day, a crew
misread a map and surveyed the wrong three-mile segment. The
field director was at fault because he didn’t make his strategy clear
enough to the crew leader. Luckily, the team recovered from the
error and went on to finish the project on time and under budget.
If not for this one mistake, though, they might have finished days
earlier – saving the company many thousands of dollars.
As a leader, you have a duty to share your organization’s strategic
goals with your team members as plainly as
possible. This includes everything – from
long-term targets that may take years to
achieve right down to the daily adjustments
that keep you on course. While you don’t
necessarily have to reveal every little detail, the
broad outlines of the organization’s strategic
goals should be transparent to all involved.
That way, they can clearly see the general
strategy, where they fit into its framework,
and how their efforts help move everyone
closer to the final destination.
Most of us have worked in jobs
where we had no idea where we were
going or whether what we did even
mattered. A business can survive this; it
may even make money at it. But you can
rest assured employee productivity will
just limp along, uninspired at best. If you
keep your team members in the dark, you
run the risk of creating unhappy drones who either waste their
time or sit muttering in their cubicles and guarding their staplers,
like poor Milton in the movie “Office Space.” And he ended up
burning the building down.
So communicate with your team members clearly and
completely, lest you figuratively “burn down” your own business.
Give them all the information and other tools they need to get
the job done. Let them ask any and all questions they deem
necessary, and answer them patiently. Then make sure you ask a
few of your own to test their understanding of your goals. Along
the way, take advantage of all available methods of communica-
tion: team meetings, email and video conferences.
On a broader scale, communicating your basic organizational
strategy can be as easy as publishing a brief mission or vision state-
ment on the company intranet, holding an all-employee meeting
Continued on page 36
Good strategic
alignment consists of
practices that connect
organizational strategy
with em ployee perfor-
mance as fully and as
directly as possible.
A successful alignment effort includes three components:
communication, education and oversight. Like a three-legged
stool, all three legs support and reinforce the others. Weakness or
failure in any destabilizes the entire effort; however, strength in
all three provides a solid structure upon which to build.
Communication, Education and
Oversight = Alignment
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