"Come together, right now!" - John Lennon
Alignment is more than just corporate speak. It is at the
core of credibility and, therefore, a big part of workplace ensoulment.
Some years ago, the company I worked for at that time took our key customers to visit our manufacturing and logistics facilities in South America. During the visit
our customers got the opportunity to do more than hear “dog-and-pony scripted
presentations.” They got to meet people in our organization at all levels of
the company and shoot from the hip in real conversations: equipment operators,
customer service staff, logistics managers, our CEO, members of our Board of
Directors and some of our key shareholders. We didn’t script any of the
meetings, we simply told our employees to use the opportunity with customers
to learn something for themselves and to candidly answer whatever questions our
customers might have.
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| Cartegena de Indias, Colombia |
On the last night of the trip during an informal gathering, our
customers surrounded one of our board members and peppered him with
questions. Anything went and the questions were direct and often tough;
the kind that are meant to show cracks and rattle the best salespeople. He
handled it with great aplomb. And then when he had finished listening
carefully to their questions and answering them in as much detail as they needed,
he began to ask his own of questions; all of them incisive and all of them
strangely similar to what they had heard from other team members that week.
At the end of the give and take one of our customers remarked to
our director, “Wow, here’s the thing: YOU are saying exactly what our sales
manager from your company tells us, which is the same thing we heard in your
factory, which is the same thing we hear from the logistics and customer
service teams, which is the same thing we heard from your CEO. You are ALL
sending the same message.” All the other customers standing with him
nodded in satisfied agreement.
When everyone in your organization shares just one view of
reality, it does two wonderful things:
· It creates astounding credibility with your
customers. Customers can smell a “pat answer” or “corporate speak” from a
mile away. They regard true alignment as credibility because it is
authentic, personal (every person can tell it as part of their own story), and
it’s not orchestrated. Something like this can’t be purchased for any amount of
money.
· It builds confidence within your team. I watched another
group of people that night as the final conversation went down. I watched
my sales and service managers stand a little taller and saw smiles break out
across their faces as our board member engaged their
customers. These are the folks that are at the front of the battle
lines every day and they take the biggest bruising in the execution of
strategy. When they realize the alignment of the forces behind them,
they’ll tackle their jobs with renewed vigor!
Do you want to start working to create a singular, personal
reality in your organization? Try some small things first. Pay close attention
to what is being said about your business in every single conversation. Be
ready to ask penetrating questions and challenge inaccuracies. Quiz your
top management every time you get the chance, to tell you in their own words
what is going well and what needs repair. Embed some part of the company's
goals into every individual's development plan. Be ruthlessly honest yourself
about your organization's challenges.
Before long, everyone will possess a singular, but personal,
view of reality. Now THAT’s ensouling!
