Fueling Performance through Alignment, Contribution, and Unstoppable Momentum

Transcription

1 Fueling Performance through Alignment, Contribution, and Unstoppable Momentum Susan L. Franzen, President and Executive Coach LifeU, Inc ; 92 nd Annual International Supply Management Conference, May 2007 Abstract. In an ideal world everyone in your organization from the entry level employee to the Chairman of the Board, everyone, would understand where you re going, why you re going there, and how their individual actions contribute or detract from the big picture. That s alignment in its truest sense. To gain alignment you need to know what it is and what it is not. You need to know how to create alignment. You need to understand the value of clear contribution paths for employees; paths that align with their own personal big picture. Today, less than 5 percent of the typical workforce understands their organization s strategy 1. You may believe that such an endeavor needs to begin at the top of your organization and be mandated down to the front line. You may believe that the only way to gain alignment is through command and control. Those beliefs are wrong. Alignment can exist at any level and in any area where the leader believes in and understands the vision; communicates that vision in multiple ways; and seeks employee participation, initiative, and innovation. Create alignment and you ll link contribution paths for unstoppable momentum. The Opportunity. Truly successful people are driven by contribution. When people find something with which they can align themselves, they ll give time, talents, energy, and even money. Aligned employees seek ways to contribute that support the vision. Contributing to their fullest potential, they create unstoppable momentum in the right direction. So why is it that so many organizations are misaligned? If you ve ever driven a car with its wheels out of alignment, you know that it is challenging to steer the car in the right direction. Constantly monitoring and correcting the direction of the vehicle leaves you needlessly exhausted at the end of the day. The car, like many organizations, has momentum without alignment. Moving at a fast pace, passengers (employees) might believe the car is moving in the right direction. The driver knows the car is not because the driver is the only one who knows the true destination. In this situation, the driver may believe her or she has control, but it is an illusion. When passengers notice the signs that the vehicle seems to be randomly pulling from the desired path, those passengers may offer suggestions and alternatives. The need to contribute is so high that the passengers will do anything they think will lead them to the right destination; even if they do not know what that destination is. This is called blind contribution. Once a passenger is ignored or reprimanded for his or her contribution, or begins to lose value in the direction the vehicle is going, that passenger will exit the vehicle at the first opportunity.

2 When organizations have momentum without alignment turnover is high. Human resources as a commodity get crushed by the moving parts. Momentum without alignment is just momentum. Contribution, like momentum, can also exist without alignment. The challenge here is that blind contribution detracts from the purpose. When your vehicle is out of alignment, filling the gas tank does little to help you steer in the right direction. However, sharing information empowers all and allows the vehicle to self-correct to the true destination. Contribution Unstoppable Momentum Alignment Alignment is the first step and often considered the most painful for an organization to achieve. Clear contribution paths develop as a result of alignment creating unstoppable momentum in the right direction. Without alignment, the vehicle you are driving might as well be up on blocks with the keys in the ignition, the engine running, and the wheels spinning in mid-air. Objectives. My objective is to provide insight and tools for supply managers to gain alignment within their organization for greater contribution and unstoppable momentum in the right direction. almost anything can be salvaged wrong location? Move it, he says. Wrong people? Replace em. Wrong industry? I don t believe it. It s how you look at something and how it s managed that make the difference 2. This proceedings paper will focus separately on the benefits of and absence of each of the three factors, alignment, contribution, and unstoppable momentum. Alignment. The ability to align employees with the organization is a skill worth building to achieve high impact performance. Alignment allows organizations to realize high impact business results more rapidly because it focuses employees and teams on thematic goals and high-payoff activities. Thematic goals and high-payoff activities are your alignment tools. Alignment creates a framework of financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth strategies 3. In essence it is an organizational boundary dedicated to preserving the organizational vision. Within that boundary employees are free to choose activities that support the vision with a clear framework on how to evaluate those activities to the vision. Activities that fall outside that boundary are discarded or delayed, focusing the entire organization on just those core, high-impact activities that will drive the vision.

3 Without alignment, employees experience high levels of stress, frustration, mistrust, and selfdoubt which may manifest as missed deadlines, destructive conflict, lack of accountability, or repeated focus on symptoms versus the root cause. Change becomes a barrier that some employees just cannot overcome. Alignment empowers individuals, strengthening trust throughout the organization and maintaining commitments by all employees. Employees begin holding themselves and others accountable to the activities within the framework, engaging in meaningful dialogue and constructive conflict, putting the issues first with low risk to relationships. There are two approaches to alignment: Right people, right roles then where are you going? vs. Where are you going? Then right people, right roles In the first approach, leaders focus on getting the right people in the right roles and then determine where they will go 4. The value of this approach is that you don t waste time coddling those who are not the right fit. As Hal Lancaster said in the Wall Street Journal, Getting fired is nature s way of telling you that you had the wrong job in the first place. This first approach maximizes employee talents to ensure success. With the right people in place anything is possible. Many entrepreneurial firms use this model to initially staff their start-up operation. Firms with greater longevity may also use this approach to re-design their organizational structure and weed out the lower performers. In the second approach, leaders determine where they want to go and then identify the competencies and skills needed to get there successfully. Hiring processes become more stringent so that less qualified individuals are dismissed before the organization expends time

4 and money on them. Organizations that are committed to retaining their culture like Microsoft and Motorola use this second approach. Which approach you choose may be based on the life cycle of your organization as well as the level of support you receive from higher levels within your organization. For the purpose of this proceedings paper, let s assume that you already know where your organization is going and you need to get the right people in the right roles. There are two questions to answer in determining the right person for the role 5. The first question is, Does the individual possess the talent for this role? (ability). The second question is, Does the individual s attitude match our culture? (willingness). To answer these two questions, managers may employ a variety of assessment tools. As the correlation between conventional interviewing and successful hiring is.2, a variety of assessments have been developed over the years to assist managers in matching an individual s talent and attitude to a role 5. While there are over 2,500 cognitive and personality tests on the market 6, two highly credible assessments for management or leadership positions are the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and the 16PF. For entry-level to mid-level positions, the Wonderlic Personnel Test and the Hogan Personality Inventory are helpful in determining cognitive ability and personality factors necessary to determine the ability and willingness of an individual to perform well. Behavioral assessments (Myers-Briggs, DiSC, etc.) may be used once the individual becomes an employee. These assessments help managers and leaders determine the motivations of the employee and identify ways to create high performing environments where employees become self-motivating. In a high-performing environment the company purpose, employee s personal values, and job requirements are aligned to meet the seven motivational needs which drive each of us. These seven motivational needs are: Achievement our need to produce or accomplish Affiliation our need to belong Autonomy our need for independence Power our need to lead and influence others Esteem our need for public recognition Safety and Security our need for predictability Equity our need for fairness When met, individuals are motivated to focus on their contribution to the organization. When not met these needs set in motion a series of high maintenance, self-monitoring behaviors that detract from the organization s vision and consume endless quantities of managerial time and resources. Contribution. Aligned organizations maintain a framework of financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth strategies. These organizational boundaries

5 allow employees to freely contribute their talents and skills, unleashing the power of the organization at its most basic level. Employees are most productive when they feel needed and valued. Based on a natural flow of giving (talents and skills) and receiving (recognition and praise), contribution supports the seven motivational needs. When an employee s values are aligned with the vision and values of the organization, the employee contributes freely and productively to achieve the financial and customer service goals while following internal business processes. The employee seeks learning and development opportunities so that he or she may provide even greater contribution. As a result of each individual contributing fully to the organization, the organization is able to fully contribute to the success of its shareholders, customers, and community. The power of all the collective employee contributions increases the overall organizational value. The five keys to continued employee contribution are simplistic, yet not simple: 1. Collaboratively with the employee, clearly identify expectations and set SMART goals that align with the thematic goal and focus on high-payoff activities 2. Provide motivating environments that encourage innovation and initiative 3. Identify clear paths for contribution by defining the framework for financial and customer goals 4. Recognize and reward employees for achieving goals within that framework 5. Provide consequences for not achieving goals or for acting outside the organizational boundary; act quickly when consequences are necessary Without clear contribution paths, employees linger in the neutral zone of change, not really resisting change efforts yet not fully engaged either. Frustration and stress are a result of the employee s inability to move forward due to overwhelm or lack of motivation. New ideas and innovation are stalled and quality suffers. Managers must remember that contribution is not an event; it is part of the ongoing management process. One of the most difficult things is to take a well-articulated executive plan and have the people sitting at their desks in Des Moines understand how they contribute to that plan 7. Because individuals possess the innate desire to contribute 8, without clear contribution paths employees will contribute in any way they can, including those ways that detract from the organizational vision. Once an employee can no longer find a path for contribution it is not long before that employee finds another organization where contribution paths appear more clear. Unstoppable Momentum. You ve aligned the employees within your organization. You ve provided clear contribution paths. It s time to take the car off the blocks and see what that baby can really do. Unleashing the power of your employees to contribute fully within your alignment framework produces unstoppable momentum in the right direction. For organizations to achieve their

6 objectives whether they are manufacturing or service, private or public, for-profit or not-forprofit all organizational participants need to be aligned to the strategy. As 50 percent of the work done in industrialized countries today is knowledge work, the challenge for organizations is how to enlist the hearts and minds of all their employees 9. Momentum is where the energy and passion are ignited. Innovation is taught, encouraged, and rewarded in a self-fueling system that continuously challenges the limits of employee and organizational potential. Without momentum, time and energy are wasted driving disengaged workers to an outcome. Unfinished projects are notorious for their various starts and stops and critical projects are delayed indefinitely. Momentum allows employees to see the results for their effort expended. The greater the results, the greater the employees contribution of energy that continuously fuels the momentum and makes it unstoppable. Summary. Alignment means we put the right people in the right roles with the right resources and ask them to focus on the right activities, producing high impact performance. Clear contribution paths continue to align individuals to the organizational vision and increase organizational value by unleashing the power of employees. Passion and energy ignite to fuel greater performance levels that are sustainable over time, producing unstoppable momentum. REFERENCES Book references: 1 Kaplan, Robert S. and Norton, David P. The Strategy-Focused Organization, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA Kaplan, Robert S. and Norton, David P. The Balanced Scorecard, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA Collins, Jim. Good to Great, Harper Collins, New York, NY Buckingham, Marcus and Coffman, Curt, First Break All the Rules, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY Kaplan, Robert S. and Norton, David P. The Strategy-Focused Organization, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA Hendricks, Gay and Ludeman, Kate, The Corporate Mystic, Bantam Books, New York, NY Kaplan, Robert S. and Norton, David P. The Strategy-Focused Organization, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA Journal or magazine article references: 2 Buchanan, Leigh, Create Jobs, Eliminate Waste, Preserve Value, Inc. Magazine, December 2006, pp Clifford, Stephanie, The New Science of Hiring, Inc. Magazine, August 2006, pp