5 Ways to Improve Team Alignment

How does the term “alignment” apply to business?  Alignment is the concept of having a team that is in sync with the direction of the business.  It is the situation where decision making, prioritization, and actions from both the group as a whole, and from individual employees, are “aligned” with the business purpose, goals, and culture.  It is the proverbial “everyone rowing the boat in the same direction”.

Why should we strive for alignment in our businesses?  Well, the benefits of having an aligned team are actually kind of amazing:

• Alignment creates synergy, i.e., the team accomplishes more together than the sum of the accomplishments of individual members.
• The team is more harmonious.  Everyone feels less stress, and has substantially less conflict to deal with.  The work experience is better, and employee retention greater.
• Customers receive a consistent, repeatable experience in doing business with you.
• The team gets results.  The business reaches its goals more easily, whether they be long term, or the accomplishment of short term projects or campaigns.

So clearly, seeking to build alignment in your organization should be a focus for business owners and managers.  But how do you go about it?  Well, like a lot of things in life, it’s best to start with the basics.  Here are five alignment building practices you should adapt.

1. Strategic Planning.  I don’t mean simply your own secret plan that you dreamed up in a weekend at the cabin.  Strategic plans that create alignment are created by some or all of the team, and most importantly shared, explained and understood by all.
2. Team Meetings.  Alignment takes ongoing work, constantly reminding members of where the business is headed, what the key initiatives are, and who is responsible for what.  Short, focused meetings held rhythmically, and cascading through the organization help build alignment.
3. Key Performance Indicators.  Measuring things gets results.  KPIs act as the team’s scoreboard, and KPIs should apply not only to the team as a whole, but to individual members.
4. Systematization of Processes.  Systems that are documented and repeatable help create more consistency, because they ingrain the best ways that things get done.
5. Clarity about Employee Expectations.  When we take the time to help team members clearly understand what we expect of them, and gain their commitment to their own individual goals, we can align their actions to the organization’s needs.

Of course, all of this depends on how you, the owner, lead your organization.  Are you able to candidly assess your leadership abilities?  On a scale of 1-10, how would you rank yourself as a leader?  On a scale of 1-10, how would you rank your team’s alignment?  Those two numbers should be very close, or the same.  If they’re not, you are lying to yourself on one or both of the rankings, and it’s probably the first one.  Alignment is highly dependent on Leadership, and if Leadership is a weakness, Alignment will be, too.

Baby Steps

“I just don’t have time.”

That is a phrase that all of us seem to use automatically.  It’s so common that when we hear it, we never challenge it.  Rather, we nod knowingly, as though this is the pinnacle of all excuses, and it can’t be challenged.  Another popular alternative is the phrase, “I will do <blank> just as soon as I get caught up.”  In other words… never.

Making progress in our businesses is often held up by this seeming lack of time.  I think that one of the reasons we allow ourselves these excuses is that we are looking to reach our goal in one step, or as few steps as possible.  We want the time to put a big initiative into place so that our businesses leap forward in conjunction with the big thing we have done.  For example, when we have time we’ll…

• Clean up our workspaces so that our whole team becomes more efficient.
• Put together our business plan, or strategic plan, or budget. 
• Initiate the new product line.
• Start calling on a new customer base. 
• Invest in the software the employees have been asking for.
• Teach our employees to do some of the work we take on ourselves.
• Lead our team and our businesses the way we imagined when we started the business.
• And many more big, potential initiatives.  Add your own here: ______________________

But of course, the amount of time and effort needed seldom comes our way because we are so wrapped up in the day-to-day work of our business that we see no “free time” in our future.

Rather than looking for the big chunk of time to work on important initiatives, I prefer to encourage baby steps.  Maybe it is too hard to find a large block of time, but it’s not really hard to find or plan for small pieces of time.  We do it all the time in our life, fitting in our kids’ soccer game, the Chamber networking event, the sales webinar, or the meeting with the Yellow Pages rep.  (Now there’s a chunk of time you could save!)

So my advice is to break down those big initiatives into small steps.  Let’s take the example of cleaning up our work space, maybe our production area.  Break it down into small steps.

• Have a 30 minute meeting to gather employee ideas of the easiest areas to attach.
• Agree on one small, specific area to clean and organize.
• Have a 20 minute stand-up meeting with the appropriate employees to agree how it will be done.  Set a goal for completion.
• Clean the area in one or more steps.
• High fives and pats on the back for a job well done.
• Repeat.

That’s it.  Just think if you cleaned one small area in your shop every week.  By the end of the year you’d have 50 areas cleaned and organized.  Your shop would be more efficient.  Your employees would be more motivated.  You will have accomplished the “big initiative” you’ve been delaying for the last three years.  And you’ll be ready to tackle the next one.

Eat the elephant one bite at a time.  Break down your projects into baby steps and take those steps one at a time.  And if you still feel you need a little accountability to get moving, ask a business coach for some help.  You’ll accomplish big things.

Wasting Away...

If you are a small business owner, you are unlikely to hire a consultant, or even take courses yourself, to work on a Continuous Improvement strategy for your business.  Large companies often have Lean Champions, or Six-Sigma teams that are full-time dedicated to analyzing and enacting measures to make the business more efficient, more profitable, and of higher quality.  For many, it’s a way of life, or a “culture”, of ongoing improvement.  And guess what… it works.

But in small business, not so much.  If you are a business owner, you may be thinking, “Aw geez, another thing that I’m supposed to do?  I can barely keep up with all the hats I’m already wearing, and you want me to learn about Continuous Improvement?”  Well, think about it.  Isn’t that like saying “…and you want me to learn about being more successful?”  Actually… YES!

But I have to admit, the full blown sciences of Continuous Improvement can be daunting, and unfortunately, there are so many great gurus that have developed deeply expert material on this topic, that it is information overload for a small business owner.  So here’s my recommendation.  Start with the basics.  Keep in simple.  Read a book, like “The Goal”, by Eliyahu Goldratt.  Take a small amount of time to ask yourself, where could I improve this operation?  Think about the fact that large companies, like Toyota, who have a deeply ingrained culture of continuous improvement, are never satisfied that they have reached perfection, and are always looking for the next way to get better.

One way to start is by trying to identify areas of Waste in your business.  Consider these Seven Common Business Wastes:

• Overproduction – Making more of an item, or providing more service, than the customer needs right now.  Here’s a simple, kind of funny example:  How many of you have ordered 1,000 business cards because you got a “deal” on the volume, only to change something (logo, phone, email), thus ordering more cards and throwing away most of the original batch?
• Inventory – Having more materials, parts, or products than is needed right now.  It is amazing to me how much “just in case” inventory many of us hoard.  This is a waste of cash being tied up in something that may never be needed.  In this age of instant everything, could we really not obtain that special item if a customer needed it?
•  Waiting – Idle time created when material, info, people, or equipment is not ready.  Let’s say you have three employees waiting for a half hour at a job site for materials to be delivered because you failed to arrange for delivery on time.  If you pay them $20/hour, you’ve just spent $30 on labor for nothing.  How often do you do that? 
• Defects – Work that contains errors, rework, or mistakes, or lacks something necessary.  How often do you make something that you have to throw away (scrap)?  How often do you credit a customer because of inferior product/service?  Do you ever order the wrong thing, or does your supplier deliver something other than what you ordered?  Yeah, I thought so. 
• Motion – Movement of people that does not add value.  Here’s a common one… you or a crew member runs to the hardware store because you forgot (or lost) an important tool or part needed to complete a job.  You are paying for that trip, and not able to bill your customer for the time it took.
• Transport – Movement of product that does not add value.  Instead of having a warehouse location, some items get stashed on the floor because they are often used, or you just don’t know where else to go with them.  Every time someone has to move those items to get at something on the shelf, it’s a waste. 
• Processing – Effort that adds no value from the customer’s viewpoint.  If you have any kind of setup process needed to perform the work, or produce the product needed, it is unlikely you can get paid by the customer to do that.  They simply expect you to produce the product.  What can you do to speed up or eliminate setup?

These examples may or may not apply to you, but hopefully you get the idea.  What wastes can you and your team identify in your business?  When you begin looking at your business in this light, you will be amazed at the improvement you can make.