Sustainable change: Leadership Buy-In and Alignment are key

Two important steps that should be taken and fulfilled in order to successfully achieve the Goal Tree, are gaining Leadership Buy-In and Leadership Alignment.

Leadership Buy-In

From our experience, obtaining Buy-In by senior management can be complicated and can be a common cause of failing in performance improvement programs. The reason why obtaining the leadership engagement can be challenging is because it means not only gaining their understanding, but a strong commitment and actions in support of the setup Goals.

Leadership Buy-In can be accomplished by implementation of a mechanism that keeps the leaders regularly involved; makes them accountable for outlined opportunities; guides them to choose priorities; and requires their assessment in the actual completion of the projects.

Leadership Alignment

After the Leadership Buy-In is achieved, the Leadership Alignment comes to place. It happens when all the members of the team work together in accomplishing a common purpose. The effectiveness of this kind of team work is based on active support of each other, deep focus on priorities, effective debates, and strong commitment to learning and improvement. Leadership Team Alignment is critical to the business success. But achieving this kind of strong alignment can be challenging at times. Very often individual team members have various styles, present multiple backgrounds and experiences, follow different motivations.  Some team members can interpret situations, make assumptions, and come to conclusions based on those factors. Leadership Alignment is further complicated because it is needed at multiple levels.

Evaluate, engage and bind

There are several approaches for achieving Leadership Alignment, one of which (that is proven to be effective) is bringing a professional consultant to support this effort. But no matter which approach is chosen, in order to achieve the Leadership Alignment, the company should take these three important actions: evaluate, engage, and bind. “Evaluate” means to reflect on how well the company is performing in order to move it to the next level. “Engage” happens when the leadership team analyzes and realizes its full potential with which they can make the change happen. “Binding” is the most important step in the alignment as it requires diligence and ongoing constructive support and feedback from team members. It is proven that when such alignment exists, all employees are more likely to invest their potential and work time into achieving the Goals of the organization, thus the Goal Tree.

Conclusion

To conclude, Leadership Buy-In and Alignment are critical to making any large organizational change happen. Big ideas never seem to have a substantial impact unless they are supported by people at all levels of organization.