Organizational Alignment

Organizational alignment is a powerful business strategy that can be used to achieve company goals faster, overcome operational challenges and create a unifying workplace culture.

Keep reading to learn what organizational alignment is, how it applies to your company, and more.

What Is Organizational Alignment?

The definition of organizational alignment is the process of creating unity between the company’s ultimate vision of success and the way leaders and individual contributors drive business results.

This business strategy nurtures the importance of teamwork and clarity in communication. Organizational alignment ensures that every member of the company is on the same page in regard to short-term and long-term business initiatives, workflow, and expectations. aligning organizational structure with strategy can sharpen the focus on important goals.

This powerful magnitude of workplace cohesion can be accomplished through structured planning, clear communication processes, and mindful management. While many organizations use it to quickly produce urgently needed results, it can also be focused on longer-term business objectives.

The Importance of Organizational Alignment

The importance of organizational alignment can’t be overstated.

When leadership teams and business functions are effectively tuned in to the same frequency, they become a collective force of motivated, accountable individuals who are capable of significant increases in business results.

According to a study published on Internal Results, B2B firms that adopt organizational alignment into their organization can see much faster growth in revenue and profit—24-27% faster, to be exact.

The Absence of Organizational Alignment Drives Consequences

Without organizational alignment, the infrastructure of the company can become misguided, chaotic, and aimless. Even when long-term goals are present and clearly defined, the operational challenges and problems of how teams and departments go about obtaining those goals can easily become siloed, flawed and counterproductive.

For example, the company goal might be to hit a certain sales increase next quarter. The objective is declared, opinion leaders have bought into the idea and team leaders are made aware of their part in helping.

However, without structured alignment, different business functions and employees may develop a plan of action that is redundant or counterproductive with others. How the sales department chooses to proceed could cause pain and discomfort with the production department. This may further impact the service department and how they respond to customer expectations and demands. The speed of business today makes alignment critical.

The Benefits of Organizational Alignment

Organizational alignment can bring several benefits to a business. These include:

1. Improved collaboration: With alignment comes improved collaboration. As team members across the organization are unified under the same goals, everyone can work better together to achieve common objectives. This can bolster productivity, interpersonal relationships, and the staff’s experience.
2. Enhanced efficiency: Organizational alignment marginalizes room for mistakes. It creates an environment in which team members have a responsibility to understand, assess, and provide input on initiatives, progress, and everyone’s needs. Without it, businesses can waste countless hours and dollars on unproductive meetings, miscommunications, and more.
3. Elevated purpose: Alignment encourages organizations to clarify roles. Successful organizations will delegate responsibilities based on the talents and aspirations of each team member. Not only does this maximize individuals’ skills, but it also establishes purpose. This purpose is integral to team members’ fulfillment in their professional roles and feelings of commitment and motivation.

How to Align Personal Goals with Organizational Goals

For truly successful organizational alignment, company leaders must develop an organizational alignment framework that aligns the personal (or individual) short-term goals of their employees with company-wide objectives. Use these best practices to unite individuals with the organization as a whole.

1. Paint a Clear Picture

Organizational alignment cannot be achieved without crystal-clear communication on all fronts. The first step in unifying your employees with the company should be to clearly identify important initiatives. Make sure everyone is well aware of the goals, strategic priorities, and initiatives that have been selected.

In addition to establishing a clear goal or set of goals, it’s equally important for leaders to provide employees with a road map of how they can work together to reach the goal. Understanding your goal will help you know better how to improve organizational alignment. Clarify standards, values, and expectations. Ensure that members of every department thoroughly understand their role in the grand scheme of things, what is expected of them, and how they can contribute to the company’s success.

2. Make it Personal

Your employees are more than just a number; they are an integral part of the company. Make sure they are aware of the importance of their role, how they fit, and why they matter. People want a vision and standard to which they can aspire.

You can’t simply set a company goal and expect your employees to hit it. You must provide them with the direction that applies to them on an individual or department-wide level. Encourage your team leaders and department heads to help individual employees set specific goals that will help the company thrive.

With a personal goal that is aimed toward the greater good of the company, success can accurately be measured and milestones, rewards, and celebrations can be realized.

3. Reiterate

Execution is critical and leaders need to provide continued guidance and maintain accountability.

Review progress and reinforce the importance of alignment around the goals, priorities, and initiatives. These reviews will help you understand how to measure organizational alignment and find the best key indicators of alignment success. With teamwork, shared leadership and some one-on-one coaching, you will accomplish incredible results in a short time frame.

With this information and best practices, you can develop powerful, effective organizational alignment in your company.