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Think of Alignment as the crosshairs in the scope of the rifle. The bull's-eye is centered on the Main Thing of the business, at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal lines. In his trailblazing work on Alignment, George Labovitz outlined five steps by which successful leaders zero in on the bull's eye and increase the metabolic rate of their organizations.
- Carefully craft and articulate the essence of their business and determine the Main Thing
- Define a few critical strategic goals and imperatives and deploy them throughout their organizations
- Tie performance measures and metrics to those goals
- Link these measures to a system of rewards and recognition
- Personally review the performance of their people to ensure goals are met
These steps sound deceptively simple to anyone who hasn't tried to do them. The grace and apparent ease by which Olympic athletes perform in competition belies the agonizing training regimens they endure to reach their peak performance. Like Olympic competitors, winning organizations appear to perform effortlessly because they consistently execute the behaviors that result in success.
Notes
1 We are indebted to our friend Dr. George Labovitz, from whom we have learned a great deal about alignment. We have drawn extensively from his book, The Power of Alignment: How Great Companies Stay Centered and Accomplish Extraordinary Things. Dr. Labovitz is Chairman of Organizational Dynamics, Inc. a Boston-based international consultancy. He is also a professor of management at Boston University's School of Management. Dr. Labovitz has authored numerous articles, co-authored a book called Making Quality Work, and is a much sought after conference speaker. Fox Chase Bank has partnered with Organizational Dynamics, Inc. to make Dr. Labovitz's groundbreaking assessment, teaching and training tools available to clients of the Bank. For more information contact us or visit their website www.odionline.com.
