We live in a world of rapid-fire change. Turbulent forces are swirling all around us; the flux of customer needs, the impact of technology, and ever-increasing competitive threats shape our daily lives. In this environment, a ³well aligned² organization is absolutely IMPERATIVE. In this brief article we will discuss the basics of organizational alignment in order to achieve and sustain profitable growth.

First, what is Alignment? Alignment can be described as the continuous and simultaneous integration of customers, people, processes and strategies in the pursuit of value creation and superior performance.

Secondly, why Alignment?
Alignment is a force that allows breakthrough results in customer loyalty, growth, profit and a sustainable competitive advantage. Alignment conveys the notions of shared purpose, direction, prioritization, focus, dynamics, coherence, responsibility, measurement and a high-performance workforce. People in aligned organizations have the capacity to sense change as it happens and the ability to realign themselves rapidly with a minimum of top down direction.

Sounds impossible? Itıs not. It has been proven that organizations that consistently outperform their peers, specifically in turbulent times, are led by people that keep everyone focused and centered around a few key business objectives. And this is true for companies, profit and non-profit organizations, hospitals and even government agencies! So how do you align your organization? To start you can follow these key steps:

1. Carefully think, define and articulate with clarity your organizationıs MISSION. It must be customer-centric. It must be expressed in terms of VALUE created for your customers. It has to be simple enough to be communicated and understood by everybody. It must be a common and unifying concept to which every unit can contribute.

2. Define and communicate a few critical market driven strategies, each assigned to a responsible ³champion² who will be accountable, most of the time assisted by a team, for their execution. Each strategy should have few tactics with again assigned responsibility. Each department and team must be able to see a direct relationship between action plans, tactics and strategies, how they are connected to customers needs and support the main mission.

3. Define and tie a few but meaningful performance measures and metrics to those strategies and tactics.

4. Link these measures of success to a system of compensation, rewards and recognition. Again clarity and simplicity are paramount.

5. Review the performance of your people to ensure the goals are met. Coach and train, allow for mistakes. Make corrections as necessary; the key here is to act fairly but firmly on unmet expectations.

These steps seem deceptively simple, yet they are hard to implement and even harder to maintain. . .

. . . Imagine working in an organization where every member, from top management to the newly hired employee, shares an understanding of the business, its purpose, its mission and its goals and can clearly present them.

. . .Imagine working in a department where everyone knows how he or she contributes to the companyıs or business unitıs top strategies.

. . .Imagine being on a team whose every member can clearly state the needs of the company or business unit customers and how the team contributes to satisfying those needs.

A good way to get started on the path of alignment is to implement a simple yet rigorous and disciplined strategic thinking and planning process. Donıt hesitate calling on the help of an outside professional. An experienced outsiderıs view is not biased by the internal ³traps² specific to your business or the politics of your organization.

Ultimately if you want to achieve superior results in growth, profit and a sustainable competitive advantage you MUST create alignment between your customers needs, your value proposition to them - mission and supporting strategies -, your people and your processes. You can align and energize your enterprise. You can pull everyone together under a common set of well-communicated priorities. You can inspire top performance and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. We are now in the Age of Alignment!