Total Alignment: Tools and Tactics for Streamlining Your Organization - Softcover

Khadem, Riaz; Khadem, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1599186012 ISBN 13: 9781599186016

Publisher: Entrepreneur Press, 2017

Synopsis

ALIGN YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS

From overarching vision to individual competency scorecards, Total Alignment arms you with powerful concepts and tools to run a successful, efficient business. No matter what size or type of business you run, business strategy experts Riaz Khadem and Linda Khadem show you how to align your team and operations from the ground up and from the top down.

Total Alignment is the result of innovative thinking, solid research, and thirty successful years of consulting experience with major companies. Whether your team struggles most with communication, accountability, or motivation, this book will help you inspire your organization to produce efficiently, engage in the company's vision, and hold each other accountable for solid, sustained progress. Implement these concepts and tools to gain coherence, strength, and value:

• Measure and narrow alignment gaps in key areas of your business using the Alignment Survey
• Plan for your company’s growth and measure it along the way with the Alignment Map
• Define clear roles and responsibilities for each member of your team to ensure accountability with Accountability Assignment worksheets
• Eliminate silos, inefficiencies, and redundancies with the one page management strategy
• Set short- and long-term goals that add value to each branch of the company as well as the business as a whole

Plus, gain access to easy-to-use templates to analyze your company’s alignment, including Business and Individual Scorecards, the Competency Worksheet, an Action Plan Commitment chart, and the Performance and Effort Indexes.

About this title

About the Author

DR. RIAZ KHADEM is the founder and CEO of Infotrac, a U.S.-based consulting firm that specializes in aligning and transforming organizations.Having spent over 25 years of consulting managers in business strategy deployment, performance management, leadership, and cultural transformation, Dr. Khadem grew inspired to create the Total Alignment management model. Khadem’s work in business strategy provides managers across the globe a succinct model that joins unique concepts, methodologies, and tools together to align their organizations at all levels and transform the way managers work.

This model has since been implemented in organizations across the globe, including U.S., UK, Germany, Spain, Austria, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil along with several industries such as manufacturing, insurance, and retail. Dr. Khadem has lectured in business forums in several countries. He has held teaching and research positions at Southampton University, Northwestern University, and Universite Laval, and currently holds a doctorate in Applied Mathematics.

LINDA KHADEM is the vice president and in-house counsel of Infotrac, overseeing product trademarks, copyrights, and contracts with clients and representatives worldwide. In addition, she has been instrumental in the evolution of Total Alignment, along with other business strategy books such as One Page Management and previous adaptations of Total Alignment published in Colombia and Brazil.

Along with her work at Infotrac, Khadem pursues justice and education across the nation. She has served as secretary and chairperson of the Baha’I Justice Society, a national organization of 180 attorneys. She has spoken at numerous conferences on the theme of justice and served as the coordinator of refugee children’s classes promoting moral and spiritual education in eleven Atlanta neighborhoods. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Illinois as well as a degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Emory University and has been educated in the U.S., UK, and Canada.

From the Back Cover

Total Alignment helps you define the vision and strategies that support your company's mission and ensures that the roles, responsibilities, and goals of each ember of your organization are clear and aligned for success. A blueprint for businesses of all types and sizes, this guide will help you align your day-to-day operations and business strategies and build a strong management system to help you achieve breakthrough results, sustained growth, and a high-performing workforce.

"Total Alignment takes Riaz Khadem's terrific One Page Management technique to the next level. It's a blueprint for moving any organizational team forward towards the greater good." --Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The New One Minute Manager and Collaboration Begins with You

"Well written, filled with useful, practical gems, without needless fluff, Total Alignment is perfect for the busy executive looking for quick, digestible knowledge that is equally easy to apply." --Jenny Carillo, vice president of Account Management, American Well

"Total Alignment helps everyone in a company focus on what's important and truly generates value, thus shaping a collaborative culture within the firm. For us, it has been a culture-changing philosophy." --Graciano Guichard, CEO of Liverpool Department Stores

"Total Alignment has allowed us to survive difficult financial times and helped us thrive using a simple group of processes that helped align our vision for the years to come with complete and total accountability." --Norberto Sanchez, CEO of Norsan Group

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Total Alignment

Tools and tactics for streamlining Your organization

By Riaz Khadem, Linda Khadem

Entrepreneur Press

Copyright © 2017 Entrepreneur Media, Inc.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-59918-601-6

Contents

Foreword by Jose Antonio Fernandez Carbajal, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, FEMSA, XIII, 
Preface, XVII, 
Introduction, XXI, 
CHAPTER 1 The Need for Alignment, i, 
CHAPTER 2 Unifying The Vision, 15, 
CHAPTER 3 Measuring The Vision, 27, 
CHAPTER 4 Aligning Strategy, 39, 
CHAPTER 5 The Alignment Map, 55, 
CHAPTER 6 Accountability, 65, 
CHAPTER 7 The Scorecard, 79, 
CHAPTER 8 Three One-Page Reports, 89, 
CHAPTER 9 Aligning Competency, 105, 
CHAPTER 10 Aligning With Values, 119, 
CHAPTER 11 Aligning For Results, 129, 
CHAPTER 12 Coaching for Results, 151, 
CHAPTER 13 Aligning Compensation, 165, 
CHAPTER 14 Implementing Total Alignment, 175, 
CHAPTER 15 A New Vision of Alignment, 183, 
Glossary, 189, 
About the Authors, 193, 
Index, 195, 

CHAPTER 1

The Need for Alignment

Let's begin with the case study we mentioned in the introduction. This running case study appears at the beginning of each chapter. In this chapter, you will get to know Brian, the CEO of XCorp, a large and successful group of companies in need of alignment. You will learn what we mean by alignment and why it is so critical to the success of an organization.

THE CASE STUDY

BRIAN SCOTT, the CEO of XCorp Group, walked into a crowded conference hall in Chicago and took his seat in the front row. He was scheduled to deliver the keynote address. Brian had been invited to speak because of his success in turning around an ailing company during the previous year, as well as his recent acquisition of a successful high-tech start up.

When his name was announced, he walked to the podium and surveyed the large crowd. He glanced down at his notes and confidently launched into his speech. Brian spoke about the type of leadership he had provided as XCorp Group's CEO. He communicated his vision for the expanded organization and his forecast of industry trends. He explained why TechCorp, a newly acquired company, was the right fit for the XCorp Group.

When Brian finished, he opened up the floor to questions. A young woman in the sixth row raised her hand and asked how Brian was planning to integrate the culture of the entrepreneurial acquisition with that of the larger group of companies. "Great question," Brian replied. It was a good question and was right on point. Brian knew he had taken on some risk by acquiring a startup with a distinct culture, but it was a calculated risk with the potential of phenomenal returns.

As Brian answered the woman with an optimistic explanation, his eyes fell upon a familiar face a few rows behind her. He was happy to recognize Mark Wesley. Mark had been a trusted advisor to Brian when he had first become the CEO of XCorp and was struggling to turn the company around. Brian had affectionately given him the name "Infoman" because he had solved many of Brian's information problems.

Brian proceeded to call on other people and field questions. When his time was up, he left the platform and pushed his way through the milling crowd hoping to greet Mark, the "Infoman," but Mark was gone. Brian shook hands with a few friends and colleagues and then made his way to his suite on the executive floor. Entering the room, he saw an envelope propped up on the credenza. Inside the envelope was a note that read, "Congratulations! And best wishes for the challenge you've taken on." It was signed, "The Infoman." Brian smiled as he read the message from his old friend and advisor. Mark knew that Brian loved a challenge, even though he viewed it as more of an opportunity. Taking on a new acquisition was both.

TechCorp was the brainchild of Norman Evans, an exceptionally gifted and creative entrepreneur who had started the company 15 years earlier with little capital but great ideas. From scratch he had built up a $75 million business but then opted to sell. Brian wasn't sure why Norman decided to sell, but assumed that the company was having difficulty "scaling up" or moving from a successful startup to a high-growth company. TechCorp was still relatively small, but Brian could see that it had great potential. He had studied the numbers, done his due diligence, and then made the owner an attractive offer. Norm happily accepted. Brian was hoping that this startup would become a source of research and development (R&D) for XCorp and that it would complement XCorp Group's other products and services.

Brian was right. TechCorp was scaling up and had hit a stage many entrepreneurial organizations know all too well: a challenge with capital. Norm's vision was to move beyond the inflection point, the point at which a company is too small to be big and too big to be small, and become a major player in the industry. That vision, unfortunately, hadn't panned out. He had put tremendous effort into obtaining a source of funding that wouldn't cause him to give up too much control. But every source he had turned to insisted on securing the controlling share in his company. He had also researched and found a professional CEO whom he hoped would bring new energy to the organization and enable it to get to the next level. But Peter Bergman, the new CEO, hadn't worked out the way Norm had hoped. Peter had his own agenda and had made several bad judgment calls that had actually hurt TechCorp. Norm was on the verge of getting rid of Peter and looking for someone else when Brian Scott entered the picture and made him an offer he literally couldn't refuse. So, he sold TechCorp. He had a few twinges of regret, but mostly he just felt relief and gratitude for the excellent deal.

Alignment challenges with TechCorp began a couple of months after the public lecture where Brian had seen his old advisor. Suddenly, the new acquision lost its two largest accounts. Brian was concerned and wanted to learn the cause. He called the CEO, Peter, but found him evasive and unhelpful.

Brian decided to take a trip to the West Coast and visit the headquarters of TechCorp. After he arrived, he immediately set up headquarters in the conference room. He began his investigations by talking with Andrew Carlson, the director of sales. He was surprised and concerned to discover that despite a clear strategy developed at a planning meeting six months earlier, each area had continued to pursue its own agenda. The strategy was to focus on growing the core business, eliminating non-core products, and leveraging technology as the company's competitive advantage. To grow the core business aggressively, the strategy included implementing an integrated software system. It became clear that Andrew had not agreed with the strategy of eliminating non-core products because he felt they were still viable. To prove his point, he had continued pushing those products with existing customers as well as targeting new customers. Meanwhile, the sales people, busy promoting two of the non-core products, failed to spend time with important key customers.

The operations manager had fought to maintain the existing software system, which he had designed himself a couple of years before. So he passively resisted the new software and did little to support its testing and implementation. When complaints came in from customers about the software conversion, they were given excuses rather than solutions. There were also issues in marketing. The marketing people were promoting products the sales people were not actively pushing, thus creating expectations that were not met.

"All in all a rudderless ship," Brian thought to himself. He decided that the first step in getting TechCorp back on track would be to fire Peter, the CEO. Although it was a drastic measure, Brian could see that Peter was not working out. No doubt Norman, as he was struggling to get control of his business, had hired a CEO to help him manage and to put systems in place. This particular hire was a clear mistake. Peter certainly should have been able to prevent the loss of the two key accounts.

ALIGN IT: DEFINING ALIGNMENT AND MISALIGNMENT

TechCorp shows an example of a company that has become misaligned. What does that mean, exactly? Think of it like a train that goes off the rails. The train still has momentum, but it's direction is unpredictable. For example, although a strategy had been developed, it was being ignored. People were following their own agendas with little regard as to what impact their actions would have on the success of the company. They were actively working against the strategy or passively resisting it. There seemed to be no coherent vision, and leadership was poor. These behaviors exist in many organizations (even in ones that haven't been recently acquired), resulting in a lack of focus on what really matters — serving the customers. But how do you determine if your company is misaligned? Let's first look at a picture of what we mean by alignment.

An organization is aligned when the following conditions exist:

-> It has a unified purpose, a clear vision, and a strategy aligned with the vision.

-> Individuals are accountable for their contribution to vision and strategy.

-> Employees have clearly defined responsibilities supported by key information to track their progress.

-> Individual competencies are aligned with team accountabilities.

-> Behaviors are congruent with values.

-> Teams at the right levels are empowered to develop and implement action plans to improve results. Cross-functional responsibilities are clearly defined, and spaces are provided for joint resolution of problems, so silos disappear.

-> Compensation is linked to performance.

This definition describes the approach to alignment that aims to focus people within the organization on their accountability for the processes necessary to turn vision into reality and on collaboration across functions to continually improve the processes.

Here is our definition of misalignment. A company is misaligned when people pursue goals and agendas that are incongruent with each other and do not combine to effectively advance a single purpose. One way to determine the extent to which your company is misaligned is to watch for the symptoms we describe below:

->Decision making takes too long. Slow decision making decreases the momentum needed for growth and puts your company at a competitive disadvantage, particularly when you are competing with aggressive competitors and more agile organizations. There could be legitimate reasons for taking time to make decisions. However, if the slow pace is caused by lack of clarity as to who should make the decision, or poor understanding of the vision and strategy of the organization, then these conditions paralyze the ability to act and are indicators of the lack of alignment.

->Too many meetings. Meetings are necessary for exchanging thoughts and ideas, making plans, and reviewing progress. But many organizations are stifled by too many long and unfocused meetings that waste time and drain productivity. If this is the case in your company, the underlying cause could be lack of clear definition of accountability. When it is unclear who is accountable, then everyone is accountable and too many people are invited to meetings. In organizations hampered by a strict hierarchical culture, functional managers find it necessary to be present in meetings, or send their representatives to attend. As a result, meetings become too large and too long for effective action, and little progress is made when the meeting is over.

->Overload of emails. When we talk about the overload of emails, we are not referring to the overload of junk emails. Those can be eliminated by your computer software. We are talking about legitimate emails that people receive and cannot ignore. Highly skilled, knowledgeable workers spend too much of their time managing emails. While important emails should be answered, a large number of emails are unnecessary. One main reason why emails are often sent in such volumes is because responsibilities are not clearly defined in many organizations and managers feel they need to copy a long list of people to protect their actions from criticism or to respect hierarchical protocols. Overload of emails could be an indicator of misalignment.

->Silos exist. "Silo" is a business term used to refer to departments working as separate units and not sharing information with other departments in the same company. The lack of communication may be intentional or unintentional. Functional units often become turfs that guard information and interests. Silos exist in organizations of all sizes. The story of TechCorp is an example of silos in a medium-sized company. The marketing department, the sales department, and the operations and IT department were all working as silos, not sharing information or communicating. The existence of silos is an indication of misalignment.

->Lack of clarity of responsibility. When responsibilities are not clearly defined, either no one is taking charge, or someone is taking charge who might not be the right person, or several people are fighting for control. These scenarios have varying effects on the bottom line of the company. When the results are good, then there is a tendency for people to compete to get the credit. When the results are bad, people could engage in finger pointing and assigning blame to each other. These are all symptoms of misalignment.

->Lack of empowerment at lower levels. If the lower levels in your organization don't feel empowered to make decisions, then you might be experiencing misalignment. The employees on the front line are the ones who sell the product, deliver the product, and serve the customers. When they are not empowered to act and are merely waiting to receive instructions from their managers, customers suffer and customer loyalty is lost. This is an important symptom of misalignment. You want your lower levels to be empowered with clear definition of responsibilites, as they are your link to customers, with the important role of helping your company align with the market.

->Communication is selective to protect individual interests. If you sense that communication among people is not open and free flowing, or if people are cautious about sharing information, you could have an alignment problem. Information is not owned by turfs. It belongs to the entire company and should be available to whomever has a legitimate need for it. When a manager and a direct report converse, if the direct report selectively shares information or hides information from the boss, no useful outcome will result from the meeting.

Lack of motivation in the organization. This is a general malaise you find in misaligned organizations. It is the result of multiple misaligned elements we described in the definition. Lack of motivation leads to apathy, where people have the attitutde of "whatever." Apathy is a serious condition that can impact your success. It is the opposite of being unified in purpose, having a clear vision and a strategy for success.

->Confusion and rumors. Earlier, we described what alignment looks like in an organization. When that picture is absent, then your people become confused as to where your organization is going, what they should do and why. When people are left confused for too long, many revert to gossip, sharing opinions and news that could become distractive or distructive. Confusion and rumors are the byproducts of a misaligned organization.

These symptoms are present in different degrees in companies of all sizes. If you detect these symptoms, you may wish to explore further the extent of misalignment in your company. We have developed an assessment instrument that is described in the "Apply It" section below. It has been used with companies from less than $1 million in sales up to the size of $4 billion. It can help you prevent the type of issues that Brian discovered at TechCorp.

APPLY IT: ASSESS YOUR LEVEL OF ALIGNMENT

The assessment instrument we are introducing in this section has seven categories. We describe the categories and why they are important below. Further, we explain how specific chapters of this book help can you improve alignment in the category.

->Focus and direction. This measures the degree to which the focus of your people is directed to achieve a unified purpose. Whether you are a small company or a large one, the people in your organization must be focused on delivering your vision and strategy. If they are not, they will focus either on their own agenda or other activities that will divert energy, cause confusion, and impede the progress of your company. What is the cost of lack of focus and direction? It is difficult to calculate an exact cost. But, for example, if 30 percent of the workforce is not aligned with vision and strategy, that 30 percent translates into 30 percent of your payroll that lacks focus and direction. This is a huge percentage of energy that is dispersed. Imagine the costs both in terms of human capital and actual costs that are incurred. But how do you focus people on the vision and strategy of your organization? You focus everyone by delegating the accountability for the elements of vision and strategy to the appropriate individuals at appropriate levels in the organization. This is explained in Chapter 6.

->Strategy execution. This measures the degree to which your strategy is implemented or executed in your company. Strategy execution is the key to success and yet many organizations fail in this regard. According to business expert Paul Sharman, as quoted in Business Finance, nine out of ten businesses fail to implement their strategic plan: 60 percent build a strategy that doesn't fit the budget, 75 percent fail to link incentives to strategy and 95 percent of employees fail to understand the organization's strategy. Failed strategies put companies at risk and damage their competitive position. The cause of failed strategies is poor execution. How can you align to improve execution of strategy? This is explained in detail in Chapters 4 through 7. Briefly, you define individual scorecards for everyone that establishes clear accountability for executing strategy. You provide training and support to help your people understand what good execution looks like, and you establish a systematic follow up mechanism. Monthly attention to scorecards followed by corrective action improves strategy execution.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Total Alignment by Riaz Khadem, Linda Khadem. Copyright © 2017 Entrepreneur Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Entrepreneur Press.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1599186012
• ISBN 13: 9781599186016
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224