Creating Organizational Alignment
Metrus defines alignment as focus of the resources of the organization on a few key goals and objectives set by the leadership and on the tactics necessary to achieve those goals. Much of Metrus’ work over our 20+ years has focused on strategic alignment of organizations--which means from the leadership team to the business units and divisions and ultimately, the individuals who make up the organization. This step is a centerpiece of the work that builds strong Alignment, one of the cornerstones of People Equity. Performance management is an important part of this process, but is only one aspect.
The outline below summarizes the key steps in building sustainable alignment.
- Alignment of the Leadership Team: Metrus works with the leadership team to define (or reaffirm) shared commitment to a limited set of key strategic goals, then determines the critical drivers that will lead to success in accomplishing those goals. This shared agreement is the single most critical element of a successful process of aligning with strategic initiatives. The leadership team may be corporate, business unit or function.
- Development of organization and workforce scorecards: These strategic metrics are critical step in the development of a high Alignment culture. Metrus has a long history and numerous articles and books on the subject that showcase how to develop measurement-managed organizations that have high Alignment towards common agreed upon goals.
- Cascade of Strategic Goals:Once the overall goals are understood, we work with each of the units that are part of the organization (function, division, business unit) to craft a set of objectives that support the overall goals, as well as recognize the unique contribution made by that part of the organization. This often means identifying goals for their function, as well as goals that support overall corporate objectives.
- Communications: Communication is often an undervalued part of this process. A single presentation, e-mail or discussion during performance review is not sufficient to build the focus around the company objectives. We work with the organization to make sure that communication about the goals, what is needed to achieve them, and status is presented frequently, and through a variety of channels.
- Measurement of Results: Measurement offers an unambiguous method of sharing status and results. Too often, however, we find that the use of metrics is not widely understood within the organization, and that the measures are perceived as justification for punitive measures, rather than guides for improvement. We address this in a number of ways:
- Participate in the implementation of well-designed metrics
- Guide implementation of metrics communication, and if needed, metrics training (see Training and Development)
- Provide a template for metric compilation and tracking, so that the necessary information is visible to all who need it
- Coach leadership on productive ways to use the metrics, especially when results fall short of expectation
- Incorporation into Individual Performance Goals: addressed in Performance Management