By Max Leone
7 Reasons Why Business Alignment Is Lost - What About Your Company?
Misaligned business strategy is a common reason for company failure. Without a well-defined strategic focus and plan, it is difficult to achieve the organizations desired goals, objectives and results. There are many reasons why business alignment can be lost, but the 7 most common reasons are as follows:
1. Lack of a clear and comprehensive understanding of the company’s purpose, vision and mission
There are many consequences of not understanding the company’s overriding objectives line purpose, vision and mission. The most common ramification is that the company may not be able to give its employees proper and accurate direction. This can lead to them feeling lost and unproductive, further leading to employee turnover.
Your workforce may be confused about their assumptions of the organization. These perceptions and assumptions may not be a match with what they originally thought when they started with the company thus leading to potential disillusion.
Employees could also suffer from low morale due to unclear purpose, vision and mission and feel unengaged with their work because they don't have a longer term perspective, which could result in missed opportunities or bad decisions being made.
Current and potential new customers may be unable to consider your organization a real strategic partner due to a cloudy understanding of your company’s direction, therefore limiting potential growth
It can also lead to potential investors passing your company by because they don't know what you stand for or clearly realize the potential impact of your vision and mission.
2. Lack of communication between different departments in the organization
For a company to find optimal success, it is important to have employees work together and share ideas. Lack of communication can lead to lack of collaboration and ultimately, ineffectiveness.
It is essential that the organization implements a communication strategy to ensure that all departments are aligned and working together. Sometimes rigid silos are formed within a company which may be detrimental to effective communication and overall interdepartmental engagement. These rigid silos may also cause resistance to change and cross department training, if needed.
Trying to improve the performance of your company without a well-defined aligned communication strategy is like driving with one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the brakes. You will slowly but surely lose steam and eventually stall out completely.
3. Failure to communicate changes in the industry with all employees
When managers fail to communicate changes in the industry with all of their employees, it can have serious consequences. Changes in the industry may result in changes in procedures. If a manager fails to take the time to explain why these changes are needed, employees may resent the changes. The more the resentment grows, the more likely it is for them to feel frustrated, quit and go work for another company.
Another repercussion is that some people may try to sabotage the new changes by deliberately slowing down or backsliding on them when no one else knows about them yet. This can cause chaos in an organization as different departments start fighting with each other over how best to handle certain tasks or procedures.
4. Unclear or incomplete goals set by senior management team members
We should ask ourselves "what if"? What if we don't know where we are going? What kind of uncertainty and confusion would that conjure up in your mind and result in incorrect actions or lack of actions?
It is challenging for any company to stay competitive in a fast-paced economic environment without clearly defined goals and objectives. it is not just about understanding the overall vision of the company, but also understanding what goals need to be met during a specific time period.
Goals that are not aligned and well defined can lead to less than desirable outcomes for senior management, their employees and the organization.
This can be seen when companies focus on one goal at the expense of all others, or do not provide any clear direction to complete goals in a definitive period of time.
5. Lack of feedback from employees on company goals
Some employees, especially those who are not engaged or satisfied with their work environment, may not be giving feedback or input on company goals. Some research has indicated that this can lead to a lack of employee buy-in for organizational goals, which can then result in decreased productivity and the potential of increased absenteeism.
Without feedback from employees, it is harder for organizations to balance what is most important and what will help them reach their goal. Without this information from the people that know the organization best, companies have a more difficult time strategically identifying what they need to change and how to do it.
Managing people’s careers in relationship to their goals is another difficult aspect of getting some feedback. With few opportunities to give feedback, employees are more likely to be left in the dark about what they are doing well and where they need to improve. Employees often feel as though their managers do not understand them and may prioritize things that are on a lower scale of importance. Managers may also miss opportunities for feedback because companies often don’t have formal aligned systems or processes in place for providing it.
6. Employees not empowered to take initiative without approval from senior management team members
No one really likes to be micromanaged at work as it stifles trust, initiative and self-reliance.
Failure to empower employees in the workplace can lead to many negative outcomes.
Lack of empowerment can lead to lack of innovation, increased risk aversion, low levels of engagement and motivation. This contributes to lower productivity levels which are linked with reduced profitability on the company level.
By aligning your systems and encouraging autonomy with your workforce, it will build their self-confidence and replace pressured hierarchy with a culture of mutual trust.
This will in turn increase employee job satisfaction, overall workforce retention and ultimately leading to a stronger atmosphere of cooperation.
7. Failure to prioritize projects and tasks
There are negative end results for not prioritizing tasks and projects in the workplace. These can include an inability to organize, an inability to manage time and energy effectively as well as inefficient decision-making mindset.
Being able to prioritize tasks and projects is a crucial skill in the workplace. Task priority is one of the keys to productivity and success. With no sense of priority, it is difficult to figure out what needs to be done first or when a task can get done at all.
When you and your teams are truly aligned with the organization's primary objectives, it becomes easier to be organized and have a definitive plan for your workload
This tie into overall company alignment will give you the opportunity to more easily manage your time and energy on actions that are synchronized with the overriding plan. Your work will be more efficient, and you will be able to trust that you are making the right decisions.
Conclusion
Stay attentive if you recognize any of these 7 items in your company. Be proactive in modifying these factors and understanding what adjustments need to be made to your business alignment structure. Discuss your findings and any concerns with a professional third party neutral consultant.
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