Leaders, Are your teams aligned?

"Old-fashioned as I am, I measure alignment by asking hourly workers what they think the goals of the plant are and what their particular task is in relation to their piece of that pie. If that jives with the CEO/Plant manager's, then I'm happy." ~ Robert Crosby, Organizational Effectiveness Consultant and Author

There is the story told about a time that President Kennedy visited NASA:

 "On a visit to the NASA space center, President Kennedy spoke to a man sweeping up in one of the buildings. 'What's your job here?' asked Kennedy. 'Well Mr. President'" the janitor replied, 'I'm helping to put a man on the moon.'"

That, in a nutshell, is alignment. And that little story says a great deal about why alignment is so important to a business.

When people are aligned with the mission, the vision, and the goals of the business, they get it. They see that what they do every day matters. They understand that their job contributes to the overall success of the endeavor.

In Lean organizations, alignment is Hoshin Kanri which means Direction and Execution. Putting them together gives you the compass you need to reach your destination each day. In addition, you will need Leadership and Engagement.

These six questions will help you as a leader to guide the alignment in your organization and team:

What is the mission and vision?
What are the values?
Who is our Customer and what do they want from us?
What are our goals and objectives?
What are the measures? Safety-Quality-Delivery-Cost
What are the MITs (Most Important Things) we must accomplish today? This week?
What problems must we address to improve our processes and our results?

Terrence Seamon has over thirty years of business experience in leadership development, management training, team building, and organizational change, in both internal as well as external consulting roles. Terry has a Master’s degree in Education from Rutgers Graduate School of Education, as well as a Bachelor's degree in Human Communication from Rutgers. His main interest areas these days are change and transition, job search coaching, stress and wellness, employee engagement, and leadership development.