by Riaz & Linda Khadem
Total Alignment has consistently produced outstanding results in organizations regardless of their size or industry. The IPADE case studies x, y and z show the results obtained by three organizations large, medium and small. [1] Case x is FEMSA, a large conglomerate in Mexico where Total Alignment was implemented in its early stage of development. Case y is Prolec GE, that implemented the more developed version of the methodology as a medium company and is now a very large and successful firm. Case z is Bricos, an entrepreneurial firm that implemented Total Alignment as a small company and has now entered a very successful medium stage. The impact of the methodology can be gleaned from excerpts from statements of their CEOs [2], [3], and [4]. The question we are exploring in this article is what is it that made alignment so effective to deliver results that these companies had not experienced before?
The answer can enable top management or business governance entities interested in implementing the alignment methodology to pay attention to the real factors for its success and avoid distractions that could prevent it from reaching its potential.
Detachment from Results
In order to achieve sustainable results, you must be detached from results. While results are certainly important, obsession with results can be harmful and often sends the wrong message to the organization. Emphasis mainly on results can send the message that the workforce is merely an object to be used for increasing the profits for the owners. Obsession with results engenders anxiety and fear causing different functional areas to strive to maximize results without considering the effect on other areas. A salesforce trying to have outstanding results might sell more than the organization has the capacity to produce. The production facility might feel pressured to produce more than the salesforce can sell thus creating inventory that becomes slow moving or obsolete. In the effort to cut costs and produce a rosy quarterly bottom line, a CEO can command that all areas across the board reduce their expenses by 20% or 30% leading to layoffs and loss of talents that the company will need for its future. In this way the pressure might produce an immediate intended result but harm the organization long term.
We are not suggesting that extreme measures are not required in specific situations to address important issues related to results but suggest that they should be well conceived. The long-term generation of value for all stakeholders must be considered and decisions must be well communicated. Otherwise, the message that comes across could imply that the long term can be sacrificed for the short term, emphasis on processes can be sacrificed for creating a few events that boost results, capacity building can be sacrificed for acquiring capacity needed for a few events, improving competence of the workforce can be sacrificed for reaching results by a few competent people, and distributing wealth can be sacrificed for making a few people thrive.
Results emerge as outcomes of processes, just as fruits of a tree are produced through organic processes. Different trees bear fruits at different times. A desire to speed up the process through introduction of chemicals is not healthy and the fruits will not be organic. Similarly, obsession to get short term results interferes with the natural operation of the processes in the organization.
What Should Top Management Focus On?
Instead of obsession with results, top management should pay priority attention to processes and the culture that nurtures them. In our book, Total Alignment [5] as well as in subsequent articles [6], we have paid considerable attention to describing the processes that enable an organization to advance towards its vision. We have explained how achieving vision will require processes, how the outcome of the processes can be measured through a simple tool we call the Alignment Map, and how accountability for the performance of the processes can be assigned to the workforce at the appropriate levels in the organization. We have provided a mechanism for tracking and ensuring that all processes are receiving attention.
In this article we are talking about the culture of alignment, the main driver of success without which the amazing progress we have seen is impossible. The importance of culture cannot be overstated. Culture requires a change in behaviors. We are referring to behaviors that create an environment where the workforce is living in the state of alignment. The values that inspire this culture derive from fundamental principles that govern the interactions of people. Among them is the principle of the oneness of humanity that implies eliminating otherness in the workforce, treating all as equal protagonists in a common purpose of striving to move towards vision.
Establishing this culture involves paying attention to people’s feeling of being valued, respected, compensated, with their voices heard as they contribute to the organizations’ progress towards a bright future. It implies drawing on the creativity of each person who strives, in a learning mode, to figure out how to maximize his or her contribution to turning the vision into reality. This mode of functioning will unite people and will coalesce in a force that propels the organization toward greatness. Below is a brief description of how to obtain this culture in the organization.
Replacing Obsession with Results to Obsession with Culture
Among the benefits of a workforce is living in the state of alignment is the emergence of creative strategies through contributions of people in an atmosphere that promotes action, reflection and learning. This culture requires a new approach to the exchange of ideas in various settings. We call this new approach consultation. Our definition of consultation differs from the exchanges that normally take place in most settings. Consultation welcomes a diversity of ideas and even the clashing of opposing ideas, yet it avoids the put downs and debates prevalent in so many work environments. It encourages the conversation among equals whose aim is to arrive at a practical and creative solution based on facts, not opinions. And once the solution is agreed upon, all strive to implement it in unity. During and after implementation, the team reflects together to learn and adjust course if necessary.
This mode of consultation is embedded in the Team Review and Vertical Review processes of Total Alignment. The new use of the term consultation stated above is adopted from the Bahá’í Writings [7]. It is a mode of conversation that has been practiced in thousands of diverse settings worldwide, where those with opposing views have respected each other and remained friends rather than disrespecting each other and became enemies. Instead of allowing the conversation to conclude with one opinion prevailing, the mechanism has guided thousands of groups worldwide to arrive at outcomes that were enriched by all the opinions expressed.
Environment of Consultation
All conversations between people fall within the continuum of debate-conflict to consultation-unity. Various factors contribute to where the group finds itself in this continuum. The desirable state avoids solutions being colored by selective data, biased by the opinions of individual members, supported by ideologies of its members, grounded by the prejudices and personal gains of the members and forced on the group through assertive behaviors or hierarchy. It avoids the debate-conflict environment where the purpose is to determine which of the people engaged prevails culminating in winners and losers, with the winners imposing their views on the losers.
Making Consultation Work in the State of Alignment
Since consultation as defined here is a critical requirement in Total Alignment, we have embedded several simple tools in Team Reviews and Vertical Reviews that will promote the right behaviors to take place. The tools include statement of purpose for the conversation, basic guidelines for conversation, and a mechanism to enforce the basic guidelines.
Statement of Purpose of Consultation:
Team Reviews and Vertical Reviews continually face challenges and opportunities. In both cases a creative response is necessary. The purpose of consultation should be to arrive at the creative response by finding the best course of action supported by verifiable facts, a solution that does not necessarily mimic the past. Finding such solutions will require the free exchange of ideas and examination of options. In a consultative environment everyone is a protagonist, and the conclusion is respected by all.
This purpose of the conversation is made clear to the participants at the beginning of the Team Review and Vertical Review process. To achieve this purpose, a few guidelines are necessary.
Guidelines for conversation
Here are some thoughts about the guidelines to be followed by the participants. They are aimed at avoiding disruptive behaviors we have often seen in the workplace. They are stated to assure that each participant’s contribution is voiced, heard and respected, while no one is pressured to say something. The individuals should be comfortable that no negative hidden consequences would result when their idea is expressed with confidence and for the benefit of the team. The guidelines include:
- Everyone is encouraged to participate
- No put downs are permitted in words or body gestures
- Everyone must listen to understand not to respond
- Don’t be intimidated by hierarchy
- Do not interrupt someone speaking
- Be detached from your position or views once expressed
- Raise your hand when you want to speak
- Cell phones silenced and computers off
Mechanism to enforce the guidelines
The guidelines as stated above are so intuitive that we have not encountered anyone refusing to agree with them. They have been introduced to thousands of managers in our client organizations. However, while people agree with them, aligning their behaviors is often a different story. People know how they should behave yet find it difficult to break habits they have acquired over years in traditional work environments. The transformation we are talking about in this article is dependent on the enforcement of these guidelines.
Mechanism for Enforcing the Guidelines
A mechanism for enforcing the guidelines has three important components: ownership, structure, and reflection.
Ownership
Ownership of the guidelines is the key to following them. A process which allows each group to define the guidelines themselves works well for giving them ownership of the process. To come up with the guidelines, a facilitator can simply pose the question, what are the characteristics of a safe environment in the team to encourage the free flow of ideas? As input is received from the participants and written on a white board, the above guidelines will undoubtedly emerge with the same or similar wording. The group might add additional items or miss some of the points stated above. It doesn’t matter. The missing items can be suggested to the group by the facilitator, and invariably the group will go along with them.
When the group builds this list together, they will own it and will make the effort to enforce it. The set of the guidelines is then posted in view of everyone in the team and reviewed at the beginning of each Team Review and Vertical Review session. In fact, they become an important component of every meeting in the organization.
Structure
There are three indispensable roles to be played by three volunteer participants in every meeting. These roles will assist in the operation of the consultative process. They are facilitator, recorder and monitor. The facilitator is often the leader in a natural team, although it can be played by any of the members and can even change on a rotating basis. The facilitator guides the conversation and recognizes people who wish to speak while respecting the guidelines developed by the team. The recorder is one of the members of the team who has access to internal data through the computer software TOPS as well as external data including advice from subject matter experts. He or she dynamically pulls the available data necessary for the conversation or agrees to provide the necessary data after the meeting. This role avoids conclusions being reached based on people’s opinions alone and allows the team to arrive at solutions based on facts. The third role is the monitor, a member of the team whose role is to enforce the consultation guidelines created by the team. He or she facilitates the review of the guidelines at the beginning of each meeting and has permission to interrupt the conversation when individuals do not adhere to the agreed upon guidelines.
Reflection
Reflection on how well the team was aligned with the consultative guidelines should take place at the end of each meeting. The facilitator invites the monitor and the participants to share their observations as to how well the process was carried out. A summary of these observations is presented to the team at the beginning of a subsequent meeting. Such reflection serves to gradually transform the behaviors of the team and allows the culture of Total Alignment to take root.
Conclusion
This article is written to answer the question, why has Total Alignment produced results in companies far better than what the companies had previously experienced? We stated that results are the natural fruit of processes. While the implementation of the Infrastructure of Alignment as described in our book consisting of the Alignment Map, Individual Scorecards, and the Software TOPS that ties it all together is a giant step forward for the organization, one giant step cannot produce the results we have seen. It takes further smaller steps month after month year after year to produce amazing results.
Results are the byproduct of the on-going use of the infrastructure. They are produced by monthly consultations of teams throughout the organization at all levels consisting of the owners of processes along with all their cross-functional influencers and subject matter experts. The teams develop creative action plans and learn to seize opportunities and respond to challenges every month. It is the development of these action plans within the culture of consultation stated above that makes the difference.
We can confidently assert that the culture of Total Alignment and the conversations that ensues during and after the Team Reviews and Vertical Reviews have been the magical bullets. When people are focused, respected, empowered, listened to, united with their coworkers, and receive the support they need to excel, the force is created that moves the organization towards greatness.
[1] See IPADE case studies on FEMSA, Prolec GE and Bricos
[2] Statement of José Antonio Fernández, the former CEO of FEMSA in the foreword of the book, Total Alignment.
[3] Statement of Ricardo Suarez, CEO of Prolec GE quoted in the IPADE ProlecGE case study.
[4] Statement of Eduardo Berner, CEO of Bricos quoted in the IPADE Bricos case study.
[5] The book Total Alignment, Tools and Tactics for Streamlining Your Organization published by Entrepreneurial Press.
[6] See Blogs, State of Alignment in the Organization, Overview of Alignment Infrastructure, Sustaining Alignment Through Reinvented Natural Teams, Sustaining Alignment Through Systematic Accompaniment, Questions and Answers About Total Alignment.
[7] Bahá’í Writings on Consultation