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As a leader, you can see things that others may not be able to see yet, this is your vision and it is what drives you to reach your goals. You need others to believe in what you believe in and be able to see the same vision. This is why you need your team members to be aligned with your vision and all moving in the same direction.
No matter how big your company’s or business vision is, when your team members are not fully aligned with your vision, it is much more challenging to reach your goals and hit your targets. Helping team members have a clear vision, will help you achieve long-term success.
The Importance of Alignment for Organizational Success
Team alignment is an important indicator of the business’s overall performance, and is the main drive for team members to perform their best because they are motivated and can understand the importance of their role. Also when team members are all aligned sharing one vision, they can make the right decisions and set their work priorities to contribute to the overall vision.
Aligned team members better collaborate and support each other as they all work together to achieve the same outcome. Otherwise, individuals in the same team may be lacking synergy, prioritizing tasks differently, leading to more misalignment with organizational goals.
Potential Reasons Behind the Team Misalignment
There are several reasons for misalignment, your team may not be aligned with your company values or unable to understand the impact of their role on the organization’s success. Another cause of misalignment may be the unrecognition of individual efforts, which makes the team members feel they are far from the overall vision and may feel more demotivated. Regardless of the reason, when the company’s values and main objectives are not communicated to the team members and are not aligned with their individual goals, team members may find it challenging to stay aligned and engaged.
Important Signs to Watch Out For Motivation, Engagement, and Retention
Misaligned team members are highly demotivated, so they can miss deadlines frequently and often feel confused about their tasks. You may also face low engagement from team members and high turnover rates as employees or team members feel disconnected from the organizational vision which usually hurts your team’s mental health and their performance and impacts your business. This makes them search for other work environments to belong to, and this is a strong sign that you need to pay attention to.
Inspiration by Business Leaders: Creating Efficiency and Alignment
In this fast-paced business world, keeping your team aligned is key to driving success and this is why business leaders are constantly sharing their insights on how to ensure alignment. Let’s explore two examples introduced by two business leaders, Jeff Bezos and Simon Sinek, to enhance communication and engage team members and keep them more aligned.
Jeff Bezos “Two Pizza Teams” to Unlock Efficiency
When team members can communicate more openly, this keeps them more focused on the vision and end goals. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, introduced the “Two Pizza Teams” concept to foster collaboration among team members. Jeff Bezos said that there is an ideal team size that should be small enough to eat just two pizzas, and he mentioned that this will make the team members more efficient as they will be able to communicate effectively and remain focused on common goals.
Simon Sinek’s Secret Method to Ensure Alignment
In his book Start with the Why, Simon Sinek highlighted that great leaders have charisma because they have clarity of the “Why” and he also talked about the importance of combining your efforts with people whose why are synchronized with your why.
For your team members, this may be easier when you understand why they joined your team or organization and what are they looking for or their vision. Also in his famous TED Talk in 2009 that went viral “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”, where he summarized his book and talked about the power of leading and why some companies and leaders are exceptional.
He also mentioned that he discovered that all great inspiring leaders and companies in the world, think, act, and communicate in the same way which is opposite to what anyone else is doing and this is why they can inspire, unlike others.
Transformational Approach by Richard Branson Unveiled
Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, had a unique approach to keeping his employees aligned and engaged. His approach includes setting a clear vision and investing in his team. He believes that setting a clear vision drives the company’s growth and innovation and that a business with a purpose in general, has significantly higher rates of employee engagement, retention, and productivity. Richard Branson is constantly focusing on investing in his team as he has a famous saying “Train employees well enough so they can leave, but treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” This approach contributes to the team member’s willingness to contribute to the organization’s vision and stay aligned to the overall vision, promoting a culture of shared purpose.
5 Tips to Engage Your Team Members
One of the things you need to constantly work on is increasing employee satisfaction which makes them more engaged and this requires constant communication with your team to make sure goals and expectations are clear.
- Communicate Your Vision Clearly: You need to make sure that your team understands your vision and its significance and you must consistently remind them of it.
- Create a Shared Vision: The company’s goals and overall vision should always contribute to each member’s vision and goals. This will create a sense of belonging and make people feel as if they’re part of a community where everyone is working towards the same thing.
- Understand individual Differences: It is so important to assess each team member’s skills and focus on their strength points and passion as this is where they can overperform. This may also require periodic job rotation and encouraging cross-functionalty to understand them better.
- Encourage Open Communication: Make sure to create an environment where team members are able to express their concerns comfortably. You also need to listen actively and value their needs.
- Provide Positive Feedback: Highlighting team accomplishments can increase team member’s energy levels and motivate them to do more. It is also so important to provide clear expectations and constructive feedback on assigned tasks
Working Towards Common Goals
The work culture empowers team members to work towards achieving common goals. When the workplace is full of motivation and positive vibes, and the vision is communicated clearly and matches individual needs, team members become more productive and their performance increases dramatically.
As a leader, you need to invest time and effort to make sure that your team members are aligned with one another and that they are all aligned with your business vision and organizational goals. It is always advised to conduct one to one meetings with your team members to ask them clearly if they feel aligned or not and take corrective actions as early as possible.
