Alignment in Business: 4 Ways to Help You Achieve Your Shared Goal

Management has changed significantly over the years. From the 1910s, management was centralized by the division of labour and hierarchy. The focus was demanding subordination and overseeing compliance to create a successful, standardised company.

This improved in the 1980s when employees were more involved within their workplace through collecting some data, however business goals were still used to manage people and maintain control.

As you may know today, keeping your employees out of your business and treating them like a possession does nothing more than destroy the growth of you and your business. Luckily, in our contemporary society, we have progressed to a place where more managers have turned into leaders.

Cooperation between employees and the business owner is the norm, and employees are more autonomous. Many boundaries have been removed to create an engaged, happy and productive workforce. This is where we dive into how alignment in business can help you create this happy workforce and achieve your business goals.

Alignment in business is defined as an ‘understanding of your company’s goals, values and missions

When you are all on the same page, you have a good understanding and awareness of the actions you need to take to constantly propel your business forward. As Henry Ford once said, ‘If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.’

If you are wondering why alignment in business is such an important action to take, understand this: a company with a clear mission and vision in place enables ease of decision-making, more effective teamwork, increased employee engagement, less wasted resources, and dynamic company culture. And most importantly, these factors integrated lead to maximised company profits. And that’s what you are striving for, am I right?

There are so many questions you need to consider when improving alignment in business, such as ‘Am I helping to meet my business goals? Is this project necessary? What’s my contribution?’. However, taking action is much more important, and here’s what you can do:

Alignment in business can be achieved through increasing accountability

Alignment cannot be achieved without accountability. If you would like for everyone to be on the same page as you, they need to understand that they play an important role in your company and are accountable for all actions made.

If there is a lack of accountability, your business is probably quite chaotic. It happens much too often when a plan is created and put to one side ‘for the moment’. Don’t make the same mistake and truly commit to your words of action. I have a free business template you can use to help you act on those commitments.

No clear communication hinders your goal achievement 

How do you communicate to others what the goals of your business are? One question I would recommend asking your staff is about the issues they are currently facing. If you are aware of what hinders your staff from delivering 100% into their job, you can take steps to improve this and encourage being successfully aligned.

Hold meaningful, effective meetings to achieve alignment in business 

It is imperative that you regularly review your business meetings. Around 220 meetings are held per year, and 15% of an organisation’s time is spent in meetings, which is constantly on the rise. The problem is many meetings have been deemed a waste of time and employees are unsatisfied. So, what could you be doing wrong in meetings as a business owner? Learn how to make meetings time worthy and effective

Alignment in business is more likely to occur if you reward your employees

Recognising and rewarding your employees’ strengths- by reinforcing your employees’ strengths and complimenting them on their work, it will be easier to help them to align with your goals, in contrast to criticism. You could introduce an incentive scheme which will act as a motivator for employees to reach your goals faster.

The faster you can align your business, the better for your business. Don’t hesitate and get in contact for any ongoing business concerns you may have.