If you are the CEO or owner of a company, have you ever felt like not everyone was on the same page? Alignment doesn’t just happen whether your company has 10 employees or 500 employees. Individual agenda’s get created. It makes sense that the sales, engineering, and production managers see things differently.
Research Based Results
Based on interviews and working with 650 CEO’s in 35 different industries, James Fischer was able to identify 7 Stages of Growth that firms pass through. The findings apply to firms from start-up with 1 employee to 500 employees. In this research he also found that businesses face 27 different challenges as they grow through these 7 Stages.
Getting Buy-in
So how does the CEO obtain team alignment? If you have tried getting buy-in to your issues, you know it’s proven to be a waste of time. More over your issues may not be the most important issues your firm faces. The way to team alignment is to have a process to obtain uncensored input from the management team. One process is through the 27 Challenge Assessment.
Story Illustrates the Point
One story that illustrates this point is a firm with a management team of three. Each manager was asked to review the 27 challenges and select the current Top 5 Challenges facing the firm right now. Three managers with 5 selections equal 15 choices. In a perfect world, they would have all selected the same 5. What actually happened was all 3 selected 1 challenge, and 2 selected 2 challenges leaving 8 challenges they selected individually. Add these up and the 3 managers identified 11 current challenges. It’s hard to get things done when you’re going in 11 different directions. Clearly, not everyone was on the same page. Moreover, prior to the exercise, they had not clearly identified these challenges nor had they discussed them.
Giving the Management Team a Voice
By giving the management team the ability to voice their priorities, we learn how they see things. In the case sighted, the management team took the first step which was to narrow the 27 challenges to 11. Next step was a discussion to understand why the managers saw things differently. Through a facilitated discussion, the team was able to reach a consensus on their Top 5 Challenges, leaving the others to later.
The Results
If the management team can agree on their challenges and name them (the 27 Challenge Assessment provides both), then they can address and fix them. Having reached consensus and alignment on the Top 5, the next step is creating an initiative to address each challenge and assigning accountability for the results.
Not only does the 27 Challenges Assessment provide a researched base to work from, but the same research identifies the typical Top 5 challenges at each stage of growth. Thus, the results can be measured against the research findings.
With Management Team consensus and alignment, plus assigned initiatives and accountability, the company can move ahead together as a team and thus continue to grow the company.
If you would like to learn more about the 27 Challenge Assessment, the 7 Stages of Growth, and how we can help you create real alignment, contact me today. Call 763-691-8585 or email me at Tom@trwconsulting16.com
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