Process Improvement and Total Quality Management Changed the World; Alignment-Based Growth Is the Next Global Wave
In the late 1980’s, it was the plan of many American families to teach their children to speak Japanese. I think the other subtleties of bowing correctly and presenting business cards would have been quite difficult to learn for me and my West Texas relatives, but at the time that’s the way things were headed.
American manufacturing was on its back. Detroit, the once-proud auto manufacturer, had been boarded for decades. The momentum had shifted to Japan, which now seemed to own the future of the world—the vibrancy and the brains were there. Competing with Chinese labor was impossible and everything at Walmart said “made in China.” Small US manufacturing companies flailed in agony, many at the point of death.
Three key ideas saved the world and created the global economy:
- Process Improvement revolutionized manufacturing.
- Total Quality Management focused on the outcome for the customer.
- Reengineering looked at organizational structure and workflows to create efficiency of process and procedure.
These three huge ideas all deal with process and are now embedded in world manufacturing. Where do we go from here? Management experts will tell you it’s all about achieving ROI through people, their leadership, their technical skills, their productivity, as well as their commitment.
Alignment-Based Growth Is the Next Worldwide Management Wave. It Takes Great Game-changing Process and Adds the Power of Aligned People.
Most individual teams still function more as departments than teams. Cross-functionally, they operate more as silos than as aligned, high-performing teams. Sadly, with trillions of dollars spent each year on hiring top talent, there is still no sure pathway to build them into the team that takes their organizations to the top. Alignment-Based Growth solves this difficult problem and, in doing so, also reduces the enormous costs of personnel, boosts productivity and achieves organizational goals.
When alignment exists, it creates a team mindset in a group of people who often hardly know each other and have little in common. It creates the energy and direction that inspires team members to engage every fiber of their being to achieve an outcome that is viscerally important to each one. But alignment is rare in organizations.
Alignment-Based Growth is as fundamentally important to an organization as accounting and IT. Accounting allows you to run the origination with accurate numbers. IT enables you to run the technology. Alignment-Based Growth marshals the intelligence, skills, and momentum of the organization to achieve success.
How does Alignment-Based Growth (ABG) work? It takes people who have amazing talents individually and turns them into a team that is hugely greater than the sum of its parts. ABG engages employees in the success of the organization.
- The Imperative. ABG reinvents and re-envisions ineffective and expensive teams by creating an Imperative that the organization MUST achieve. Key leaders will come with a totally different experiences and approaches to leadership. But this Imperative becomes the North Star that every initiative lines up behind. Then we map the OKR’s and the visceral reason everyone in the room wants to achieve them.
- ABG Creates a Common Mindset. It breaks apart silos and harnesses those functions to the Imperative. It connects a common bond of shared experience.
- ABG Builds on and Leverages Team Member Differences with scientifically validated assessments that create a common way of interacting and moving forward. The baffling ways that people were conflicted or didn’t click are resolved.
- Alignment-Based Growth Game Plans. ABG puts together the organizational imperative, goals, and OKR’s into a personal gameplan, using the data of the Delta 360s. Each member of the team uses the Delta 360 system to receive feedback and put together a personal game plan that meshes with the organizational gameplan. Similarly, teams rate themselves and are rated by other teams, creating a team Game Plan to ensure seamless alignment behind the Imperative.
- ABG Allows Organizations to Manage with Information for the Moment. No organization could operate without a financial statement at least every month; the key metrics about alignment performance are just as important as the numbers. Key ABG metrics are updated every month by measuring all goals and OKR’s. Performance and alignment metrics are updated on an ongoing basis. ABG manages by looking through through the windshield rather than the rearview mirror. It allows management to anticipate problems rather clean up disasters.
Experiencing the Transformational Power of ABG
Here are some powerful outcomes that ABG achieves in an organization that cannot be achieved in any other way:
- Alignment-Based Growth Harnesses the Power of Will. Until you capture the will of employees to achieve your goals though alignment, you will capture only a fraction of their abilities. Most surveys about employee engagement show that only about 30% of employees are fully engaged in their work. Another 30% are disengaged…they would rather be somewhere else doing something else. Another 30% are on the fence. Engaging people power is the greatest potential differentiator you have in your organization. Would we ever invest in an IT system that worked a third of the time? And what if you never knew when? ABG creates engagement—through substantive, frequent feedback and rigorous execution tools like OKRs–because it explains to each person how they and their roles matter and how they’re doing. It both creates and harnesses the power of engaged employees. It doesn’t ask employees if they are engaged but determines what will engage them and measures and tracks effectiveness.
- Alignment-Based Growth Connects Leaders to People. Leaders can’t lead an organization where there are different, competing visions and approaches. Alignment-Based Growth integrates, creates direction and enables leaders to lead effectively by snapping the organization behind the imperative.
- Alignment-Based Growth Creates the Shortest Distance between Two Points—where the organization is now and where it needs to be. In the ABG system, teams stay connected to the goals, personal connections, and rewards. With ABG communication, drift in the team is minimized.
- ABG Works on Personal Connection to Achieve Future Opportunity. Through individual Game Plans that are shared, the use of personality profiles like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and FIRO-B, and strategic coaching for individuals and teams, team members learn the skill of “proactive collaboration” to work cross-functionally to achieve the Imperative. As team members experience aligned projects with a solid outcome, they develop connection and trust with each other. ABG develops a network of team members with strong relationships, highly developed communication skills and a bias for collaboration.
Organizations that practice Alignment-Based Growth escape the syndrome of the underperforming teams with outstanding individual players who never coalesce as a team. They achieve their goals, learn, grow, and develop together.
Organizations that adopt ABG have a powerful competitive edge in that they are focused on the goals of the organization, they are synchronized as a team moving together, and pivoting together to seize opportunities, and maximizing the chances of success. ABG is the wave of the future.