As we return from our summer breaks, now is a great time to re-engage and re-ignite your team. Mixing things up may be just the solution to drive some new excitement into the organization. By mixing it up, I mean doing something entirely different, like bringing complete clarity to your organization’s purpose and focus, and ensuring everyone is on the same page.
This suggestion is only partly in jest, because only 17% of employees strongly agree that their company has open communication, and 70% say alignment is the greatest hurdle to achieving company strategy (Harvard Business Review). In 2006, Kaplan and Norton found that up to 95% of a company’s employees are unaware of, or do not understand its strategy – things may be better now, but probably not that much better.
The past 18 months have caused a high percentage of firms to significantly shift their strategy and operating plans to survive. Even small changes to strategy or focus can have notable impact throughout the organization, so how can the complexities of a business be filtered down into understandable, easy to communicate packages for the entire team? Patrick Lencioni in his book The Advantages, suggests considering 6 Critical Questions to ensure clarity through the organization. Although the questions relate closely to vision, values, mission, strategy and goals, Lencioni’s 6 questions frame things in slightly different, perhaps more relatable terms, and this can help cut through the complexity of strategy and business plans.
This week we will present the questions for consideration, and in further articles we will consider the value of each question and how to increase the communication and understanding in your organization.
- Why do we exist?
- How do we behave?
- What exactly do we do?
- How will we succeed?
- What is most important right now?
- Who must do what?
