Strategic Alignment – What, Why & How

What is Strategic Alignment, why is it important, and how to obtain it in your organization

Most organizations are familiar with the concept of strategic planning and its importance. Strategic planning helps organizations establish a direction over a specific horizon and includes establishing tactics and implementing the aligned strategy. However, very few organizations discuss the importance of strategic alignment.  

What is Strategic Alignment?
Strategic alignment is the process of ensuring an organization’s resources, such as its people, processes, and technology, are aligned with its plans and objectives. Aligning each area of the organization to the strategic direction is required to achieve optimal outcomes. As organizations periodically change direction and adjust their plans, it is important to reassess and realign resources to support this new direction.  

Why is Strategic Alignment important?
Organizations that are strategically aligned are higher performing. They are more efficient, and they achieve better outcomes. 

Who is responsible for Strategic Alignment?
Employees at every level contribute to achieving the organization’s goals, not just the executive and leadership team. Providing employees with training, skills and clear objectives minimizes the duplication of efforts and conflicting priorities. 

Aligned organizations increase collaboration, empowering employees to communicate clearly and transparently. When conflicts arise, trained teams can adjust to ensure the most effective decisions for the organization and its stakeholders.

Likewise, being strategically aligned creates a level of agility when the need for change occurs. When properly implemented, strategic alignment ensures that the employees and processes support the long-term vision and deliver more value to internal and external customers.  

Unfortunately, a report conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that an overwhelming 67% of strategies fail due to poor execution of rollout.  

How do you achieve Strategic Alignment?
Achieving strategic alignment requires a clear mission and vision. It also requires the organization to be unrelenting on its values – discovers them, shares them, and operates by them. The organization’s mission, vision, and values aren’t just required deliverables for their website, digital profiles, and employee handbook. They are an essential piece of the organization’s foundation. The key components in their cultural and systematic building blocks.  

The mission statement shares the organization’s purpose and why the organization exists. The vision is the long-term direction that shares who and what the company is striving towards. Values are the deep core beliefs that guide interactions between employees, customers, and suppliers alike. 

Once your values are discovered and established, it’s easy to recognize them as you conduct your interactions. This includes hiring employees, negotiating with vendors, and working with external stakeholders. If you are misaligned with your values, chances are you are misaligned with the behaviors and actions required to move the organization in the right direction.

How do you ensure your leadership team is bought into the strategy?
Having active and visible leadership that supports the organization’s direction is vital. There are several tools to secure leadership buy-in. Ultimately, the organization must identify any objections or hesitations related to the strategy. Eliciting these concerns so that they can be addressed allows team members to not only feel heard but also helps to refine the strategy. A fully bought-in leadership team can convey the organization’s strategy with confidence, sincerity, and enthusiasm.

How do you periodically realign the strategy and communicate updates?
A strategic alignment workshop is designed to link the organization’s strategy to build and support its objectives and goals. A well-facilitated workshop ensures that the organization’s vision is established along with the goals that are required to realize that vision.  

Once updates and changes are uncovered, a plan is implemented to communicate updates to improve the rate at which they are received. This includes having senior leaders who are bought into the strategy forward the changes in a measurable manner that highlights the impact on objectives and KPIs. 

Conclusion
Strategic alignment is essential for organizations to achieve the vision that is established and to serve their customers, team, and community. Without alignment, organizations stagnate and lack the innovation required to thrive in their increasingly competitive marketplace.