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Alignment

"If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time."

Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Sounds like a BOLD business objective, doesn’t it?    Dominating any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time…

ROWING IN THE SAME DIRECTION is the concept of alignment – and this is your secret weapon for making it happen in your business.

Sports teams provide great parallels to business.  Think about successful teams from the recent and distant past; The New England Patriots - The 49ers in the 80’s; The Boston Red Sox.  What winning teams have in common is that everybody, from the locker room to the owner’s suite, everyone is on the same page, dedicated to a common goal – win games.  Period.  The coaches, the players, the owners – they are tremendously aligned.  The result?  Championships.

If you are a solo-preneur, the alignment is between your head, your heart and your actions.  Are they all in alignment?  Head: Can you articulate your business objectives? Heart: Do you have a burning desire to achieve these objectives? Action: Are you doing what you know you need to do to achieve these objectives?  This is alignment and it is critical to success. 

If you are a business owner or executive with employees, how aligned are your people?  Is there a common vision you, as the leader, communicate so everyone knows the business objectives? Do they know how their job contributes to achieving the objective?  “How aligned is your team?” can be a tough question to answer.  Take a look and answer the questions below.  Score your answers, which will give you a general idea of how aligned your employees are with your vision.

A score of 34 or higher means your employees are clear about the vision and are “rowing in the same direction” to achieve this vision, which is reflected in your business results. 

A score of 28-33 may mean that there’s some work to do. Perhaps you’ve had a recent influx of new clients or a new product launch or something else that has stressed your employees a bit.  Communication, communication, communication is key here.  Stay close to the employees, reinforcing the vision, objectives and how important their role is to the success of the whole. 

If you scored under 28, your results, and therefore business performance, are almost certainly being hampered by a lack of alignment. This non-alignment may be reflected by symptoms such as missed deadlines, over-budget projects, declining customer satisfaction scores, under performing sales teams, expense over runs, etc.

What to do?? 

It all starts with a BOLD vision shared throughout the organization, so:

• Clearly communicate each person's role, responsibilities and your expectations;
• Keep your eye on the progress being made - Don't ever think your over-site isn't necessary or doesn't matter;
• Holding others as well as yourself accountable for fulfilling their roles and meeting expectations to achieve the objective; and
• Celebrating like crazy, the successes along the way.

Take this quiz - if you have employees or manage a team, share it with the others and determine your team’s average score.  Armed with your results, you can create a road map complete with follow-up strategies that will lead to the breakthrough results you need to Make It Happen. 

It all starts with a BOLD vision shared throughout the organization, so:

• Clearly communicate each person's role, responsibilities and your expectations;
• Keep your eye on the progress being made - Don't ever think your over-site isn't necessary or doesn't matter;
• Holding others as well as yourself accountable for fulfilling their roles and meeting expectations to achieve the objective; and
• Celebrating like crazy, the successes along the way.

Take this quiz - if you have employees or manage a team, share it with the others and determine your team’s average score.  Armed with your results, you can create a road map complete with follow-up strategies that will lead to the breakthrough results you need to Make It Happen. 

You're invited - On September 19, from 8:00 to 9:30 a.m. at the Cumberland Club in Portland, Maine, you're invited to join us for an free discussion about alignment in business and how peer advisory groups can help small business owners get there. The event is free but space is limited so reservations are important. Please call 207-221-3492 or contact us via our website - www.BoldVisionConsulting.com for more information or to register.

For upcoming Bold Vision programs and events bookmark the Bold Vision Calendar and check back from time to time.

Posted by Lynnelle Bianco at 01:37 PM
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If you’re in business today, networking is probably part of your promotional repertoire. In general, networking has become a fact of doing business. Many professionals and small business owners contribute upwards of 75% of their existing and new revenue to networking. But it’s one thing to know you need to network and another to network well.

I’ll never forget the first event I had to attend one week after I moved to New York and took my new position with JPMorgan Chase. I took a cab to the Hyatt at Grand Central from my apartment near the United Nations in Turtle Bay (an area of Manhattan with a diverse population of diplomats and their families although not an area as well known as The Village or Chelsea). I finally located the function room, stood outside the door for a few minutes getting my courage up to walk in, which I finally did. After standing just inside the door for a short few minutes, looking around at the room full of financial executives from global corporations around the world, I promptly turned on my heels, walked out and went back to Turtle Bay.

I was paralyzed. I stared at the ballroom filled with suits who’s names I couldn’t pronounce, names with more trailing initials than would fit on a single address line in my ACT! database. My inner voice was screaming “What are you doing here?!” …and I didn’t have an answer.

We’re business people but we’re not all outgoing, life-of-the-party types. Learning the art of and getting the confidence to walk into a room full of strangers and striking up a conversation can be as overwhelming as creating the business itself.

What if you say the wrong thing? Worse yet, what if you walk up to a group and they ignore you? Lou Perrott, in his recent Inc. magazine article says the key to overcoming these networking fears – these psychological roadblocks – is to make a plan before you enter the room.

We talk about the importance of having a networking strategy and a plan for that strategy in Bold Vision’s Promotion Action program. But at the very least, you need to remind yourself of your goals and why subjecting yourself to such stress is a good thing.

Ask yourself:

1. What is my objective for spending xx number of hours attending this event?


2. Is this event the proper venue for this objective?


3. Who do I need to talk to here and what is the outcome I need from that conversation to achieve my objective?

Networking is an important tool for developing your business and it’s critical to a successful self promotion plan. Place the same level of importance on learning to network well as the importance you place on growing your business and you’ll see some pretty dramatic results.

For information about the onsite Promotion Action program or the Promotion Action teleclass check the Promotion Action page on the Bold Vision website.

Here is a list of a few different types of networking events and the pros and cons of each, depending on your objective for attending. Use this to help you with your next networking strategy.