Continuing on the topic of organizational alignment… In organizations, alignment has three dimensions. Vertical, Horizontal, and Contextual. It is this third dimension is about sustainability and congruence and the softer side of leadership. Read more about all three in this week’s article, and consider how you would you rank your organization’s alignment across the three dimensions. Is your focus on the dimension that will produce the highest payback?
I admit it… I confess… I have a few favorite words and I tend to overuse them. Some of these favorite words come and go, but some stay for a long time. One of my all-time favorite words is ‘alignment’. I’ve had it for a while and I plan to keep it forever. If you show me a problem, any problem, then I’ll explain why it is caused by a lack of alignment.
In considering alignment as it relates to organizations, two questions arise – what does alignment mean and why is it important?
We’ve all been there. The speaker has just finished. Maybe we were listening to the economist at the annual meeting or the expert who knows more than we do about how to achieve success. Everyone in the audience is looking out the corners of their eyes, without moving their heads, to see if anyone else understood what was just said. The speaker’s liberal use of buzzwords and otherwise uncommon language helped him clearly establish why he was the speaker and others were only the audience.
Buzzwords can be awesome. They can be fun to use. They can make us feel current, connected, and (if we are totally honest) maybe even a little smarter than the average colleague. However, in the wrong situation, they can have a negative effect.