Most teams believe they are aligned to their company’s business strategy, yet consistently fall short of achieving their goals. With all of the hustle and bustle of business, teams can easily veer off track in a sea of busyness.
When teams veer off track, they are losing the opportunity to create impact in their organizations. And eventually, these negative perceptions toward the team end up causing good employees to leave the company.
The company, the leader, and the team all lose.
How do top leaders achieve alignment of their critical teams?
- Top leaders share stories with their teams to reinforce company values. These can be stories about co-workers or customer testimonials. Sharing stories allows your teammates to pay attention to the experiences of real people and this makes them feel good about their company’s values.
- Top leaders use a planning process that is consistent for all critical teams. Every team shares their plan across the company, so it is recognized if any of their priorities don’t support company goals. A thorough planning process ensures all critical teams are pulling in the same direction.
- Top leaders clearly define success criteria for every priority at every level of the organization. There is no ambiguity. Using RED, YELLOW, GREEN success criteria clearly defines what is expected.
- Top leaders find ways to help their teammates understand the relevance of their daily work. How their work enables the company to achieve its long-term strategy. Top leaders make sure their people understand how important they are to the company.
- Top leaders collaborate with their teams each week to brainstorm solutions to problems that have surfaced. Conducting weekly problem-solving meetings provides the glue to maintain alignment and drive accountability. Provide your teammates a consistent framework so all team leaders can conduct effective weekly meetings and stay on track.
- Top leaders are uncompromising in reinforcing the importance of their goals and the alignment to company strategy. They help their teams maintain focus on top priorities. They hold their teams accountable for results.
How would you rate your team’s alignment? Do you spend enough time with your team to share stories? Make them feel important to the company? Do you brainstorm solutions with them to help make their jobs better?
The challenge for most leaders is time. They don’t believe they have enough time. In reality the time invested in the above measures will result in having much greater amounts of discretionary time.
Will you commit to become a top ten percent leader?
You can ease into it by choosing one of the above steps as a starting point and you will be amazed at how it will impact your team.