Program: The Collective Alignment Process
Are you having difficulty implementing a new strategy, plan or large scale change?
We invite you and your team to quickly learn and immediately use a new, proprietary process that enables effective implementation of a new strategy, plan or large change. We call this The Collective Alignment Process. Implementing this proven process builds the collective alignment that drives rapid change, breakthrough performance, and true vitality in your organization.
A great number of businesses, across all industries, have difficulty implementing a new strategy, plan, or large scale change. Extensive research as well as our own experience shows conclusively that although every company faces challenges in execution, great companies know how to work through them. The key is to set up a process that uncovers the truth, especially the unvarnished truth about the barriers blocking implementation.
Most initiatives fail to uncover the truth, and thus lead to only superficial change. Employee surveys, interviews by external consultants, "town hall" meetings, etc., typically produce mixed results at best. Because they do not convince employees that management wants to know the truth, these methods all too often lead to cynicism, which of course is the enemy of change.
The most persistent problem facing senior leaders today:
You don't have a solid, proven process to effectively implement strategy or any large scale change. You've been frustrated that strategy execution or other large change initiatives have been less than consistently successful, or not successful at all.
What you really want instead:
Extensive research and our own experience show that organization-wide conversations are essential to effective implementation. The Collective Alignment process is the result of 10 years of design and refinement. It significantly enhances senior executives' ability to implement strategy and other changes, and it does this through a specific employee feedback process.
The Collective Alignment Process enables the two critical elements for effective implementation:
- Truth based, well informed decisions about the new business direction and about employee issues relative to the new direction, are made at the senior level.
- Employees support the new business direction as a result of being involved and having the experience of being heard by the senior team.
Thus, the Collective Alignment Process enhances senior executives' capacity to implement change quickly and effectively. The process is based on the truth about what's going on and thereby prevents being blind-sided by concerns that come up later. This process also provides collective commitment (alignment) which drives rapid change and results in breakthrough performance.
Across the board, companies that have used this process experience a dramatic improvement in bottom-line performance. The process will encompass approximately 6 to 8 weeks, with all participants being fully engaged in an environment of candor and trust. I will facilitate the key steps of the process.
Dramatic performance improvement is actually quite reachable when you have a simple, yet powerful process any leader can use:
The Collective Alignment Process is characterized by a task force of highly regarded people, who are appointed by the management team to interview people in all parts of the organization. The task force, not the management team, decides who will be interviewed, within the guideline that the interviewees are a representative sample.
The process steps:
- Management team articulates the strategy or new business direction
- Management team selects a task force of up to ten of their highly regarded people (1 hour)
- Management team has a launch meeting with task force; the task force is trained in interviewing; task force identifies up to 50 interviewees (2 hours)
- Task force interviews up to 50 people throughout the organization (7-10 hours for each task force member over 2-3 weeks)
- Task force meets and identifies major themes (2 hours)
- Task force presents feedback to the management team (2 hours)
- Management team analyzes/develops plan to address feedback (3 hours)
- Management team meets with task force to present plan and receive feedback (2 hours)
- Management team, through task force, announces plan to the interviewees, the larger organization, and implements changes (2 hours)
Some important elements of the process:
- The interview questions focus on the most important issues facing the organization – the organization's strengths and the obstacles to performance. Do we have a distinctive business direction that people believe in? Do we have the capabilities to execute that new direction?
- All people involved are protected through the following: strict adherence to interview confidentiality, the task force reporting major themes only, and the task force presenting feedback to the management team using a "fishbowl" discussion technique (the task force simply discusses the common themes it identified – it doesn't recommend solutions, and it doesn't deliver a written report).
- The appointment of the task force sends a clear message that the management team is serious about the truth and making appropriate changes.
Key requirements of the process: After 10 years of implementing this process, we have identified several over-riding lessons. The conversation needs to:
- Move back and forth between "advocacy" (senior leadership's point of view) and "inquiry" (employee's response).
- Be about the important issues, especially those related to the organization's strengths and the obstacles to performance.
- Be collective (multiple levels of people) and public (senior leadership keeps all informed of what's been learned and changes planned).
- Be honest without anyone risking their career or job.
What's special about this program:
The Collective Alignment Process is unique in at least four important ways:
Breakthrough results are generated. Unprecedented performance is delivered through this process, and that performance is both rapid and sustained over time.
Employees own and support the new strategy. Your employees are involved and truly feel heard by senior leadership. When this occurs, employees will support the changes required.
Senior leadership knows the truth. The senior team knows, often for the first time, what the lower levels know – what's going to work, and what isn't going to work, and adjusts the strategy accordingly.
The organization becomes more highly engaged. People at all levels gain a new commitment to the firm's vision and mission. Teamwork at all levels is raised. Trust and straight-talk become the way people work together.
The bottom line. This process builds the collective alignment that drives rapid change, breakthrough performance, and true vitality in the organization.
What you receive in the program:
The Collective Alignment Process is a time-tested, proven program. It has withstood the test of time over the last 10 years. It makes a huge difference in implementation, sometimes called the discipline of execution. The program is designed and delivered by me. I will facilitate each of the nine steps of the process. The participants are the senior leadership team, the task force of highly regarded people throughout the organization, and the employees who are interviewed by the task force.
It begins with a meeting of the senior team. I provide an overview of the entire process, answer questions, then help the senior team select the task force members.
I will then facilitate each remaining step of the process. This will include facilitating meetings in the process (not the interviews), coaching a senior leader or task force member if required, and providing handouts and further instructions and guidelines throughout, to ensure each step is accomplished on time and executed properly.
Bonuses:
- A signed copy, for each participant, of my two best-selling books on leadership and strategy execution: The 100/0 Principle and Life is a Paradox.
- Servant Leadership Card and High Performance Team Card
Is the Collective Alignment Program a good fit for you?
The Collective Alignment Program has been run with medium size to large clients in the United States, Canada and Europe, including First Energy, Mobil Europe, Frito-Lay and Renault. This is not a pilot program. It's a proprietary program that I have successfully facilitated for over a decade. The program has helped hundreds of leaders and teams achieve true breakthrough results. The process, including its associated learning and new behaviors, really sticks – participants continue to create unprecedented results long after the 6 to 8 week program is completed.
The work I do with clients is practical, straight-forward and not academic or theoretical. That's a major reason my clients have experienced sustainable performance beyond what even they thought possible.
I understand the challenges and opportunities you are facing. I've been in your shoes, and your people's shoes, having spent the first 18 years of my career in corporate leadership positions.
If you've gotten this far in this letter about the program, you might be interested in taking the next step. If so, I invite you to contact me for a complimentary Collective Alignment Process Strategy Session.
In that session we'll explore the challenges you and other leaders face, the kind of results you'd instead like to see, and whether this program will be of help or not. Whether we move forward together or not, I promise you will leave our conversation clear about the issues and excited about what's possible.
The conversation will take no longer than one hour and can be done ideally in person, or by phone. Click here to book a Collective Alignment Process Strategy Session. I'd love to speak with you.
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See our other time-tested programs:
Servant Leadership for Breakthrough Results Program
Culture is a Conversation Program