“No, no, no” my daughter’s Marching Band leader screamed. “We cannot get to the end of the field without ALL of us going in the same direction. Each section has to be playing the same song.”
As I walked with my daughter back to the car she said, “I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t just try to march to the same beat. We would look so much better.” True I thought, too true.
That night I thought about all the organizations I had the privilege of working with. Many of them launched new strategies all the time trying to capitalize on trends or new technology. But, well thought out, interesting, and even rational strategies failed at an alarming rate. Even after John Kotter’s seminal book, Leading Change, organizational change, like introducing a new strategy fail 70% or more. Why? What is it that we are still doing wrong?
But it couldn’t be that companies don’t know HOW to implement change. How could that be possible? There are 100’s if not 1000’s of books on the subject and just as many consultants. So if it is not the HOW then it must be something else.
Could it be as easy as marching to the same beat?
Research tells us that successful organizations focus on developing their managers and aligning their culture (teams, departments, operations) to their strategy. Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization. The idea is that you have to get everyone to march to the beat of the same drummer. That can be accomplished through force, but that is hard and costly. The alternative is to uncover the current culture and provide managers the tools they need to drive incremental change.
It’s as simple and difficult as 1, 2, 3
- It starts with understand how engaged the organization is. Before people can get behind any change, they need to be excited about what they are doing
- Then you have to uncover the current level of alignment to the strategy and culture
- Uncover service alignment between critical departments and service connections to increase effectiveness
Supporting all of this is an on line Alignment System giving front line managers, leaders and OD/HR regular support, guidance and learning. The system would help to get everyone on the same page, helping them start to march to the same beat.
My daughter’s band finished the season winning all kinds of awards. Her director was focused on making sure that each section of the band was “playing the same song” and “paid attention to (and supported) the rest of the band”.
Are you tired of strategies going unfulfilled? Are you wary that not everyone in your organization is marching to the same beat? What happens if your new strategy fails? Learn how to make sure that doesn’t happen….
