The term \’alignment\’ has been much used over the years and at times is taken entirely out of context. In this email, I want to discuss the power of alignment and invite you to take a short questionnaire. See how you stack up against your target objectives.
We all want to be aligned 100% of the time, but we all know (deep down inside) it is just not always possible. How then, do we reconcile being offside more often than not in some aspects of the business? Generally, we don’t, it is just accepted. Since we are living in a constant state of change, what chance do we have to stay ‘aligned’ for the long term? I’m suggesting that a new management competence has to be developed to maintain alignment.
Leverage What Works
Since I teach what I practice, I continue to emphasize that alignment is central to understanding the root causes of many strategic and operational risks within the context of ERM.
According to the Global Risk Management Institute, there are 3 risk categories. They are Strategic, Operational, and Financial. With these 3 categories you cover every type of risk there is – internal, external, controllable, uncontrollable, known and unknown.
That’s all there is!!
Try The Alignment Questionnaire
Hundreds of companies leverage alignment for their Risk Strategy
Of the more than 350 organizations we’ve worked with, taught, trained and coached along their ERM path in the public/private sectors on 3 continents, we have incorporated alignment into their programs. It reveals where the risk focus should be.
To achieve this, we deploy a tool that generates an assessment of where you are at. To sample this tool, click here and respond to a few questions.
The four areas where alignment is essential are those that few people focus on:
- Connecting your employees, their roles, responsibilities, behaviors, and performance targets to the company’s objectives/mission/main thing – focusing on their intentions and acting accordingly
- Linking processes, technologies and systematic approaches to the needs of your customers
- Shaping your business, change and risk strategies with real-time information from customers, stakeholders, the marketplace, competition, suppliers, etc..
- Creating a culture where the above elements work seamlessly with greater awareness.
Illustrating alignment is a powerful outcome and it becomes the motivation for action to, literally, get aligned. A sample recently completed by a mid-size organization looked like this
