A good 97 percent of employees believe that poor team collaboration and alignment negatively impacts project outcomes. While you might understand the team building is crucial, your workers should be well-aware of the capability to work effectively with top-end performance. While you might not have complete control over how your teams tend to operate, there are some steps you can implement to improve the overall chances of success for your entire organization.
As your organization grows, team alignment and collaboration become increasingly difficult to attain. In a simple example, it is illustrated that in an organization of only two individuals, there can be two channels of communication. When a third individual is included, the degree of complexity will triple significantly. Therefore, team members and managers should aim at implementing ongoing team alignment strategies to keep the teams highly engaged and efficient.
What is Team Alignment?
An organization can achieve team alignment when individual team members and cross-functional teams work toward the same goal or vision. Both the parties should be capable of understanding the individual as well as team goals while observing how their contributions connect to the broader organizational purpose.
As per a study report, when teams are engaged and aligned, companies benefit from improved productivity, higher employee retention and engagement, increased communication, improved decision making, and improved agility to respond effectively to external forces.
Importance of Team Alignment in an Organization
Individuals are attracted to organizations featuring a clear vision along with a well-defined company direction. In turn, the clarity will help in improving the retention rates of the companies. Therefore, team alignment is important as it helps in attracting employees while retaining them for longer. Moreover, effective team alignment fosters efficient and productive work by ensuring that all team members work toward a common, aligned goal.
Top Ways to Create and Improve Team Alignment
It is not an easy feat to achieve team alignment. A study on team alignment revealed that 72 percent of leaders claimed that they involved employees in the development of the progress of the organization. The existing disconnection is something that tends to hinder team alignment while driving disengagement.
#Communicate the Strategy and Objective from the Top Down
A recent study revealed that frontline employees are less likely than organizational leaders to say that they understand how the successive roles contribute to the process. It poses a significant barrier to effective team alignment.
Aligning the organization starts with articulating and establishing the organizational strategy and purpose. While the role of CEO in communicating the strategy and purpose of the company is crucial, the entire management is responsible for stating how it applies to individuals and teams.
#Combine Individual Contributors to the Entire Business Objectives
When individuals understand the specific roles in the grand plan of your organization, great things can take place. A recent research report revealed that around 86 percent of senior leaders revealed around 5 percent or even greater increase in overall employee satisfaction. It happened when employees realized that their work is aligned with strategic initiatives and goals.
One effective way to track the same is by using OKRs or Objectives and Key Results. OKR serves to be a collaborative goal-setting framework utilized by individuals and teams. It has enabled organizations like Netflix, Google, and Adobe to plan as well as measure success in team alignment with the respective company strategies.
#Celebrate Team-centric Wins
When you recognize the small and large accomplishments of the teams and individuals in your organization, it will encourage your employees. It will also remind them that you value the individual contributions of every team member. As a team manager or leader, you should aim at recognizing the individuals and their efforts on a regular basis.
Moreover, you should also encourage peer-to-peer recognition while involving cross-functional teams by hosting virtual or in-person social events to celebrate cross-team successes and collaboration. While recognizing team and individual accomplishments, link them to wider organizational strategies to continually drive the impact as desired on the vision of the company.
#Host Alignment Meetings
With the objective of starting off a new mission or project, a team alignment meeting usually takes place in the form of an interactive discussion. The meeting should ensure that all team members remain on the same page while being aligned with the OKRs of the mission or project at hand. These meetings tend to be crucial as they ensure that subsequent team members are informed and well-prepared on the shared objectives.
How can Enterprise Discussion Management Help with Team Alignment?
Collaborative planning and team alignment can be boosted with the help of a leading enterprise discussion management tool. Future Solve comes up with relevant enterprise discussion management solutions to help organizations frame a dedicated team alignment strategy for ensuring optimum success.
Through a dedicated enterprise discussion management solution, you can think of asking open-minded questions to obtain relevant feedback on the corporate strategy while gaining insights to inform team strategy along with tactical planning. Team members can go ahead with sharing their answers anonymously. They should also be capable of objectively rating ideas and responses of each other.
Conclusion
Long-term success will require leaders to think beyond providing specific initiatives. It also ensures focusing on the development of sustainable business practices. Fostering effective team alignment is a crucial element of ensuring maximum business success. You can expect excellent results with effective team alignment and collaboration -including seamless conflict resolution, greater innovation, and highly satisfying results for the entire organization.
