The Importance of Organizational Alignment and How To Achieve It

Organizational alignment is the key to any successful organization. Working in a siloed organization creates unknown gaps in your customer experience. It also takes away any accountability or transparency between departments. In today’s digital environment, it is more important than ever to deliver streamlined and personalized customer experiences. The only way to truly accomplish this is by starting with team alignment.

What Is Organizational Alignment?

Organizational alignment, or total team alignment, is the idea that the entire team, from the most entry-level employees to the executive level, share a common vision and goal for the company. They work collaboratively to accomplish each goal while maintaining a sense of transparency and accountability across departments.

Why Organizational Alignment Is Important

Team alignment is integral for seamless and effective internal and external business processes. It also helps encourage collaboration, which creates happier, more effective teams. Without alignment, each department works independently with its own goals, data sets, and technology applications. We call this a siloed organization.

The problem with a siloed organization is that each department works with a different, limited data set, performing various tasks at different stages in the customer lifecycle. They do not share information with other departments, therefore creating holes in the customer experience. In this situation, we frequently see contrasting efforts occurring since there is little to no communication between the departments.

In a survey by Clear CompanyOpens a new window , 97% of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project, and 86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures.

The most effective organizations will be those that make team alignment a priority and part of their company culture.

Benefits of an Aligned Team

With an aligned team, a business delivers better employee AND customer experiences. Below are some key benefits of organizational alignment.

• Enhanced collaboration amongst teams
  Teams are able to communicate more effectively and collaborate on ideas and processes.
• Accurate 360-degree view of the customer
  When you break down the silos, all departments update and share data in realtime. This gives the entire organization a 360-degree view of the customer.
• Less customer confusion and better customer experiences
  With defined roles and responsibilities, each department and team member is responsible for their part in the customer experience. There is no overlap or missed opportunities.
• Faster decision making
  Because data is more centralized, leadership is able to make strategic decisions more quickly than having to collect and analyze data from disjointed teams.
• Less resources wasted
  Resources are used more wisely and there is less overlap in efforts. This means saving money and increased organizational efficiency.
• Greater transparency and accountability
  An aligned team understands how each department functions and the roles they play in the customer experience. This means that each team member knows how their own role affects others within the company. This accountability and transparency creates more engaged employees.
• Optimized roles & responsibilities
  Piggybacking off the last benefit, with an aligned team, every employee is assigned to the tasks that best fit their skills. Each person knows their role, what is expected of them and how they fit into the big picture.

How to Move Towards Organizational Alignment (and Break Down Those Silos!)

Team alignment doesn’t happen overnight. It takes strategic planning and most importantly, vision from the top down. Below, I outline a few best practices for aligning your team and encouraging collaboration.

1. Establish a unified vision of total team alignment

This is probably the most important aspect when working towards team alignment. Without a solid vision, the team has no concrete path to follow. Silos typically start with management. Each department head is focused on accomplishing their own set of goals without taking the rest of the team into account. This silo mentality is destructive to team alignment. With that being said, team alignment also starts with management. The leadership team must make collaboration, communication and the free flow of information a priority.

The goal is to get out of the ‘me’ mentality and into the ‘us’ mentality.  Start investing in each member of your team and celebrate their growth, when the team wins, so do you.

2. Use the right technology

The right technology can make or break your alignment initiatives. For example, CRM is not just for sales and marketing automation is not just for marketers. CRM (customer relationship management) should sit at the base of your technology stack and every team member should have permission-based access to view pertinent data points. For example, when each team member, no matter the department, can log into a CRM and view key growth metrics, everyone can see progress towards the common goal.

However, it doesn’t stop at CRM. Invest in a complete solution that integrates key departmental components such as marketing automation and customer service features. Integrated platforms help teams collaborate more effectively, so every department can view relevant data from across the organization, not just their own department. For example, it is important that sales and marketing teams view customer service data. When all of this data is managed in a single database, the organization has a consistent flow of accurate data in realtime. This means marketers can better tailor their messaging, sales can focus on their hottest leads and customer service has better context for providing exceptional support. All of these elements build a more cohesive customer experience.

3. Don’t skimp on the communication

Communication is key. While working independently is important for focus, that does not mean you don’t actively communicate with the rest of the team. The idea is to encourage the free flow of information. Open the barriers between departments and allow everyone to communicate openly, whether around the office or through conferencing tools if you have a virtual team. To effectively foster collaboration amongst teams, it’s important to establish mixed teams that work toward a common goal. For example, if you want to develop better content to help address customer pain points, the strategy and planning team should consist of sales, marketing and customer service. That way you have interdepartmental collaboration and a wider, more complete view of the needs of the customer.

4. Work together often

Tear down the cubes and create an open environment where people can work together. That doesn’t mean everyone sits around the water cooler for office gossip, it simply means allowing people to interact and work collectively. This improves employee engagement, creating happier employees. Happy employees are more productive, which in turn results in overall growth for the organization as a whole.

Final Thoughts

As people increasingly seek community and a positive working environment, it’s critical to break down the silos and allow your team to openly communicate and grow together. A team that grows together stay together. Cheesy? Maybe, but true. A company can avoid a lot of potential issues and limit waste by establishing a solid alignment strategy. Don’t wait until it’s too late.