Organizational Alignment
The new managerial competency
Point of View
Change Management
The ability to create organizational alignment is one of
the most sought-after characteristics of executives today.
How good are you at spotting misalignment in your own organization and what can you do about it?
Nine Symptoms of a Misaligned Organization
-
Too much of we vs them
-
Employees show little knowledge of how company's strategic vision is going to be accomplished
-
Planning for change ends after new organizational chart is created
-
Departments work in isolation
-
Department rewards and performance measures are at odds with each other
-
No mechanism for ensuring values are being lived up to
-
No clearly defined inter-departmental workflows
-
Creating 'extra organizational' units to get work done instead of leveraging existing organizational units
-
Employees believe that senior leadership has gone 'back on it's word'
So, you recognize some of these misalignments in your company, but what can you do about it?
Based on first-hand experience with many technology deployments, Anton Consulting recognizes that organizational change is less about how enabling technologies changes the actual work at hand, and more about how organizational momentum is inspired – not forced – around a common vision. Anton believes that the factors listed below are critical in generating the momentum and the “organizational energy” needed to create change that extends beyond one leader or one department.
Recently, some colleagues and I were discussing downsizing and Mark, the more boisterous one of our group declared, “Hey, I actually wound up in business school getting my MBA because of downsizing”. Laughter from the group ensued and then he said, “But I wasn’t fired, I just quit.” He went on to talk about his company where he had survived three rounds of lay-offs and happened to be earmarked as a future leader.
A No-Nonsense Approach to Organizational Alignment
Working with what you got