Aligning Around Mission: Having a Clear Line of Sight on What Matters

Mission, vision, and strategic priorities are all familiar business terms. Have you considered what can happen when you have a clear and aligned line of sight on these? Most often this creates a meaningful working experiences that produces breakthrough results. Yet, probably more of you have had the experience of what happens when these are not clear and aligned. You can feel like you are flying blind, fighting fires, unsure of what the future holds … uncertain about working here.

When walking into a company and you see their Mission Statement displayed, have you thought “really, there seems to be a disconnect.” This response could be an indication of a lack of alignment about what matters and how it lives in the organization, in their culture. This disconnect between what they say and how they act can lead to inefficiencies, unexecuted goals and disengaged employees and can be costing time, resources and top talent. A recent Forbes article stated that 65% of organizations have an agreed upon strategy yet only 14% of employees understand that strategy and only 10% of the strategy is executed. This points to why ALIGNMENT a critical and an often overlooked key ingredient – the missing piece to operating daily with a clear line of sight on what matters to your organization, where each and every employee knows what they are doing and why … and everyone flourishes.

With the technology industry being one of the fastest, if not the fastest, growing industry in the marketplace, where employees are being snatched away at a glance and you need to be able to turn on a dime, it is critical for your organization to be aligned and to understand:

Where you are going …
Mission: your meaningful long-term direction

Why you are going in that direction …
Vision: why you are in business

How you are going to get there …
Strategic Priorities: align with your mission & vision

Daily alignment and engagement is a deciding factor – a game changer!

When everything, all aspects of your business, are in the correct relative positions, when it all comes together and works smoothly from vision to execution from CEO to employee, that is what we call alignment. It keeps everyone moving in the same direction, has a palpable and inspiring energy, encourages creative dialog, accomplishes desired results, retains key employees who enjoy their work … and ultimately builds trust and contribution.

With the ever-expanding trends in technology it is easy to see how fragmented and unfocused everyone can each get. Trends in everything from resource management to smart machines to the expansion in cloud/client computerization to risk management and security to social media to compliance, and the list goes on, can get pulled you in too many distracting directions. That is why it is critical to understand where you are going, why that direction is important to your business and how you are going to get there. In addition, it is critical that you have a culture that can deliver. Alignment is about having the commitment to make the decisions that move you in the same direction by focusing on your goals that make the company reach high levels of performance, achievement and well being.

Just as the technology industry is a very dynamic system so are organizations. They are dynamic/living systems and like most systems they function best and are happiest when their various parts work together smoothly and efficiently, and knowing that change is inevitable, they have the resources to adjust and respond. Even with the excitement and newness of a fast paced and ever changing marketplace people at all levels of the organization want to know and be aligned with what is important to them and that there is a clear line of sight for themselves, their work and the contributions they make to the organization’s meaningful future.

Next time when you see the Mission Statement displayed, stop and consider – aligned or … maybe not so much, is the mission living in the daily life of the organization and how this is impacting the company’s meaningful future.