Why Organizational Alignment is the Key to Your Company's Success

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by Newton’s Cradle. I could spend hours watching stainless steel orbs bounce off each other in a way that seemed almost magical to me at the time. These models are made by hanging metal balls from two crossbars by light wire, with the balls at the point of an inverted triangle. This ensures that the balls can only swing in one plane, parallel to the crossbars. If any ball moves out of alignment (or off the plane), it transfers less energy to the other balls in the string, making the cradle work less effectively. Newton’s Cradle works with balls of any size and it doesn’t matter in what order they are hung. As long as they are perfectly aligned at the center of each ball, the cradle will work.

Ideally, the balls should be made out something that is very elastic and of uniform density. Elasticity is the measure of how well, or poorly, an object can deform and then return to its original shape without losing energy. Very elastic materials (like a golf ball) lose little energy, while inelastic materials (like glass) lose more energy. In practice, a Newton's Cradle will swing for longer with balls made of a more elastic material. They also work for effectively when all the balls are the same size, shape, and density. However, even in cradles with different sized objects, the effect remains the same. However, try as I might, I learned that no amount of force or elasticity could overcome misalignment. When a cradle’s balls were misaligned, the cradle didn’t work nearly as well, if at all.

After investing more than twenty years studying organizational behaviors, culture, and results, I have found the same principle of alignment applies to businesses of all sizes. It seems that Newton’s Cradle is a perfect metaphor for sustainable organizational success. There is a certain level of energy and momentum inherent to organizations that fully align their behaviors, culture, expectations, values, and goals. They seem to move forward effortlessly, always making the right decision at the right time, demonstrating just the right amounts of elasticity and form, and always creating a climate where their people perform beyond their capabilities. Conversely, when an organization is misaligned, no amount of force can overcome the havoc created by divergent and random forces acting upon its performance.

The maverick organizations that have figured out how to successfully align their behaviors, expectations, values, culture, and goals have unlocked the key to sustainable performance - employee engagement. Despite the rumors, employee engagement is not an event, a program, or even a series of actions. It is not something on a checklist you can complete and cross-off with a red Sharpie. It is not a luxury, it is not a fad, and it is not going away. Companies who learn how to engage their people earn the single greatest competitive advantage any organization can possess. Conversely, companies who struggle to engage their people, who settle for a workforce of highly disengaged employees, or even unengaged employees, run the risk of being left behind, relegated to the history books as just another organization that drifted into anonymity despite all the warning signs.

Employee engagement occurs when an employee’s discretionary mental, emotional, and physical energy align with the organization’s values, goals, and expectations, focused on behaviors that benefit the long-term well-being of the employer, the customer, their peers, themselves, and all of the organization’s stakeholders. Both the employee and the employer must continue to nurture the unique reciprocal relationship that is the essence of employee engagement, for engagement is not a process or an event, it’s an ongoing relationship and mindset.

The days when a single, charismatic, passionate leader could drive his organization to sustained prominence, have long since passed. The world is a much smaller place than it was just a few decades ago. People now have access to a constantly expanding diversity of ideas information generated from a newly minted global economy. The most successful companies are able to draw on the experiences, paradigms, and knowledge of every member of their team, not just a select few. Influences and expectations that held true just a few years ago have become obsolete, replaced by an ever-growing understanding that tomorrow’s world does not care about the source of solutions nearly as much as it cares about the effectiveness of those solutions. In today’s age of technology, there is almost nothing you can invent that can’t be copied, reverse engineered, and reproduced for less tomorrow than you paid to produce it today. 

Simultaneously, we are also in the midst of a social revolution where people now have access to information and experiences unedited and in real time. Change that once took decades now takes just a few short years. Expectations that held form for generations now become obsolete in the blink of an eye. The next great thing is often gone before it ever has a chance to become anything in the first place. Today’s employees are not willing to work in the same type of misaligned, bureaucratic institutions that their parents and grandparents endured. Today’s workers demand a new type of organization, one that works with their people to deliver a new type of customer experience. They demand to be part of the solution.

The key to winning in today’s ever volatile marketplace is the same force that makes Newton’s Cradle perform – alignment. When you align what you do with what you say, believe, and aspire to become, your organization remains centered, enabling the momentum in one area of your business to transfer throughout your organization, enabling you to create sustainable business results.

The journey from where you are to where you need to be will not be easy, but then again, nothing worth having is ever easy. I invite you to follow me on a journey of growth, where I will teach you how to engage your people, align your organization, and transform your business’ potential into performance, productivity, and profit.

Scott Brown, MSOL, is the Chief Engagement Officer at Hardie Consulting, a Fort Lauderdale, FL based management consulting firm.  Scott is a coach, a consultant, an author, and an award winning speaker who has successfully helped countless organizations learn how to meet shifting customer and employee expectations. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottBrownMSOL, connect with him on LinkedIn, visit his company’s website www.HardieConsulting.com, and check out his new book, Alignment: How to Transform Potential into Performance, Productivity and Profit, available on Amazon or CreateSpace to learn more about how employee engagement and organizational alignment can become the linchpin to your success.