Connecting People To Strategy: Doing Your Own Version of God’s Work
By Ron Cox, CEO, Tailwind
When talking with a CEO about how aligned his people were around his company’s strategy, he commented, “Everyone is doing their own version of God’s work.” What he meant, of course, was that his people were hardworking and dedicated. They were pursuing their work with a missionary-like zeal. They were, however, totally unaligned with the strategy and instead working on what they thought were the most important items. There were passionate and focused, just not on the right strategic priorities. This represented the total opposite of “Getting everyone on the same page” and is pretty common in large organizations.
Recently, a senior executive with a large company commented that her company becomes unaligned at the first level across the top of the organization. She remarked that each senior executive forms their own interpretation of the overall strategy, and this interpretation strongly influences how they develop their strategies for their respective parts of the business. Predictably, the various moving parts don’t always add up or come together as expected.
Getting everyone on the same page is about having a strategy that is clear and focused, where the strategic imperatives are understood by all. It involves building consensus around your company’s strategic intent and ensuring that everyone fully supports the direction. It means having executives and managers across the organization who can effectively and accurately translate the company’s strategy. When they can do that, they are able to synch their daily decision-making with the imperatives of the overall gameplan. Getting everyone on the same page is a first, necessary step that allows your leaders to share a common vision of the future, understand the needs of the business as a whole, and synchronize perspectives horizontally on the overall priorities for your company.