Part of what makes an organization successful, whether it be a business, a volunteer organization or a religious one, is having all team members focused on the same goals. Keeping people focused on the same goals can, at times, be challenging, however. Because this can be difficult, it is important that leaders take steps to help team members stay aligned on the same page. A leader can align team members through transparency, communication, and having a good plan.
Organizations, especially large ones, have many different departments and many different team members that are involved in keeping that organization successful. To make the organization successful, however, everyone needs to be working toward the same goals. Mat Blumberg says: “No individual interests are as important as the company’s” (Blumberg). This is because if individual departments or people are working for different goals, the organization itself is not united. Things work better if everyone is going the same way instead of pulling resources in different directions.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"How to Get Everyone in Your Organization on the Same Page".
Keeping everyone on the same page, or keeping organizational goals aligned, can be rather difficult. To do this, a leader can take several steps. The first, and most important, of these steps is communication. Mieuwhof says that it is important for leaders to gather everyone involved in running the organization together regularly so that the goals and strategies of the organization can be discussed (Mieuwhof). Wishart says that during these meetings, everyone should have a chance to share ideas, but that there should, in the end, be only one person who makes the final decisions (Wishart).
This does not mean that, as time goes on, the final decision maker should not discuss the goals that have been decided to see if there is resistance to the original plan or input as to how to make sure the goals are reached (Wishart). Mieuwhof says that the attitude of people during these meetings should be respectful since there is almost always someone higher up on the ladder than any given person, and that there should be plenty of opportunities to build trust between team members (Mieuwhof). Communication when determining strategies and planning goals is essential for making sure that everyone on a team is involved in keeping the organization on an aligned path.
It is also important to make sure that everyone on the team not only knows what the end goals of the organization are, but also that everyone on the team is working toward those goals. Part of this, Blumberg, Mieuwhof and Wishart say, is transparency. The entire team needs to know and understand what is being attempted, and to know exactly how well current plans are working toward those goals. (Blumberg, Mieuwhof and Wishart). Blumberg suggests letting everyone in the organization know what the goals are, and allowing even people at the bottom of the ladder to work in their own way to achieve those goals (Blumberg). This helps not only everyone in management be on the same page, but the entire organization. Blumberg also suggests that everyone in the organization be compensated according to those goals, and not compensating different departments according to different criteria. He says that this will make sure that departments help each other, since success for everyone means better compensation for all. (Blumberg). By keeping everyone aware of the organization’s goals and how well those goals are working for the organization as a whole, leaders can keep everyone involved working for those goals in alignment.
Team alignment is key to success in an organization, no matter how big that organization is. By communicating regularly with team members and making everyone in the organization aware of and responsible for the goals of that organization, leaders can help their companies succeed by keeping everyone on the same page.
