Understanding Organizational Alignment | Operational Excellence Quick Hits

Speaker 1: (00:05)
Within the organization, we need alignment, so I want to talk about effectiveness and efficiency here. What’s the difference between the two?

Speaker 1: (00:14)
I’m looking at creating organizational effectiveness and we do that through alignment, by getting everybody aligning to the same goal. So, if we start with a goal, we want to be a high performing organization, then we look at it from a rowing team perspective. So if I have a team of rowers, the goal is to get to the finish line as effectively as possible. Everyone needs to work together and row at the same pace, and the better we row at the same pace, the straighter and faster the boat’s going to go.

Speaker 1: (00:53)
But if you look at the boat at the bottom, they’re going off course and if we focus on the second rower, he’s three times more efficient than the rest of the team. Great. Right? But, by him being efficient, the system, or the goal, is not being achieved.

Speaker 1: (01:12)
One of the hardest paradyms, and a paradym is a way of thinking that companies need to make when going through this transition, is in order for the system to be effective, some processes actually got to be less efficient. So if we’re focusing and trying to make everybody busy and efficient, you’re going to be the boat on the bottom.

Speaker 1: (01:37)
Also think of it in terms of a symphony orchestra. Everybody has to be in sync. So the goal of the symphony isn’t to play your music as fast as you possible. There’s a time to play and there’s a time to wait. You need to understand, when is my time to play? When is my time to wait? That creates synchronization.

Speaker 1: (02:01)
Organizational alignment is all about synchronization of the organization. So, everyone’s rowing, everyone understands their goal, how their actions effect everybody else in the organization, and how we work together to achieve the high performing organization.