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Home (/) HR News (/hr-news) The 3 Levels of Organizational Alignment

The 3 Levels of Organizational AlignmentOver 75 years ago, Chester Barnard published a landmarkbook called The Functions of the Executive, one of the firston organizational theory. In it, he makes a key observation:Successful cooperation in or by formal organizations isthe abnormal, not the normal, condition."

In other words, organizations dont cooperate naturally.Thats why one of the fundamental roles of the CEO is toproactively build the basis of successful cooperation:organizational alignment.

In this post, I want to dig into what alignment really meansspecifically, the three forms it takes in every

organization. When CEOs set up systems to achieve and maintain all three, they have laid thegroundwork for a cohesive, well aligned, and high-performing company.

Fail at this task, and youll be like a conductor at the front of an orchestra thats trying to simultaneouslyplay seven different Beethoven symphonies. Its not a pleasant experience for anyone, and makes for achaotic organization that is easily trounced by the competition.

1. EmployeeRole AlignmentThe first kind of alignment describes the fit between an employee and his or her role in the organization.Does the employee have the knowledge, skills, and most importantly, job-specific motivation to succeedin this role? If the individual is misaligned with the function to be performed, the relationship begins onshaky ground, and the mismatch will threaten the broader forms of alignment discussed later in thispost.

How To Build It

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Supp

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Own the recruiting function. CEOs ensure alignment between employees and their roles by activelyparticipating in the hiring and training process. This is something many CEOs see as a low priority,frequently outsourcing it to HR or other parts of the organization. I believe, however, that gettinginvolved in acquiring and developing human talent is one of the highest-ROI duties the CEO has.

Look for people who are excited by the opportunity you provide. If the role fits within the candidatesinterests and long-term career plans, you have the most important part of employee-company fit. Skillscan be taught and knowledge can be acquired, but youll never be able to get someone excited about ajob that they regard as a way to pay the bills. Seek people who possess intrinsic motivation to excel inthe roleemployees who, as Harvard professor Teresa Amabile defines them, are motivated primarilyby their own interest and involvement in the task.

Train and coach. Dont make the common mistake of hiring based on superficial alignment (such assimilar previous job experience) and then assuming the person will figure out his or her role. Setting upa formal training program for all employeesallowing about three months before full productivity isreachedwill help individuals calibrate themselves to the position. Provide a continuous learningenvironment that encourages every employee to constantly improve their skills.

2. EmployeeTeam AlignmentThe second level of alignment occurs between the employee and the team, including his or her directsupervisor. Does the employee understand the objectives of the team, the expectations of thesupervisor, and how his or her role supports the other members of the work group?

How To Build ItMake sure all employees and teams have integrated goals. To qualify as aligned, employees need lineof sighta term used by Wendy Boswell and other researchers to refer to the individuals ability toconnect his or her daily actions with the strategic objectives of the organization. Line of sight mustextend all the way to the top of the company (more on that in a moment), but for the individualcontributor, line of sight also means understanding how their work supports the objectives of theirteam. Make sure that all departments are equipped with a set of specific goals for the quarter, and thatall employees set goals that meaningfully contribute to them.

This is the basic idea behind Peter Druckers management by objective and more recent frameworkssuch as the Balanced Scorecard and objectives and key results (OKR). Whatever approach you use, andwhatever solutions you use to implement that approach, all employees should be equipped with well-defined, measurable goals that directly support the teams top initiatives.

Set parameters for decision-making. Alignment between employees and their teams also means thatpeople know their boundaries; they understand when they have autonomy to make a decision and whenthey should escalate the decision to their supervisor. The best way to support alignment in this way isthrough a clear and easily accessible org chart.

3. EmployeeOrganization AlignmentThe third type of alignment is the hardest to build, and it all falls on the shoulders of the CEO: thealignment between employees and the organization as a whole. This is where employees line of sightextends all the way from their daily reality to the highest-level of company strategy.

Over time, as the layers in an organization increase, groups can become so disconnected from thegoals of the larger organization that they create their own independent vision within the company andeventually become totally removed from the purpose of the business. They try to succeed on their ownwithout realizing they are actually in a three-legged race with the rest of the company: if they hope toreach the finish line before the true competitors, theyll have to coordinate closely.

Only when this third form of alignment is in place does the strategy of the CEO fully connect to frontlineexecution efforts.

How To Build It :

Set company-wide goals that teams can support. Just as employee goals should directly support teamgoals, team goals should directly support company goals. Crucially, this is a top-down process: the CEOhas the perspective, knowledge, and experience to know where the organization should focus itsefforts. Once the CEO has broken long-term vision into a set of tangible company goals for the quarter,department heads can proceed to set their own supporting goals, and then the cascade continues untilall employees have goals that clearly align with the rest of the organization.

Use a system for publishing goals and measuring performance against them. Without a formal systemin place for publishing the organizations goals and linking them to relevant goals for everyone else,individuals will begin to lose touch with their relationship to the rest of the organization. The cascadinggoal structure of Khorus allows for this to happen in a single platform thats visible to everyone in thecompany. The platform also allows employees to share targeted insight on their goals that flowsdirectly up to the CEO each week. This gives the CEO an informed portrait of performance, and allowshim or her to realign resources to address on-the-ground realities.

Full alignment exists only when it permeates the entire organization, when employees are aligned withtheir roles, their teams, and their organizations. When you build all three levels, youre ready for highperformanceeven in the most unpredictable of circumstances.

Read the Blog ofJoel Trammell Here (http://www.khorus.com/blog/the-3-levels-of-organizational-alignment-and-how-to-build-them-in-your-company)

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