Posted by chris on July 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

With my recent purchase of a new car, I have ceased membership in two groups to which I had a certain affinity: (1) those with cars built last millennium, and (2) drivers of standard transmission. All indications are that both these are dying breeds. The sales guy who facilitated my purchase won me over partly by saying that the automatic transmission turned “driving” into “aiming.”

There was only one time when I was truly embarrassed to drive my old car. Last year in March, ice on the highway caused me to spin out into a snow bank half way through a four-hour intercity trip. The bottom half of the trip was humbling; it is one thing to be driving an old car that runs well, quite another to drive one that rattles when you crack 85 km an hour. It was a very quick and inexpensive fix, which brings me to the topic of alignment, where little things can make a big difference.

Two summers ago, I sat with a client overlooking the newly installed volleyball nets on the lawn of the corporate campus. The idea was a good one: outdoors, exercise, taking a break, blowing off steam… The only problem was that, apparently, none of the senior staffers ever played. Directly or indirectly, the message to staff was “if you want to get ahead in this company, don’t waste your time on the volleyball court.” In my experience in and around organizations, there are many such instances that illustrate a misalignment between intention (what the organization wants) and action (what the organization does).

NOTE: HR has a tough role in these instances, and would do well to fully understand corporate cultures and values before launching “employee” initiatives.

Defining or clarifying some shared values can assist in making interactions and negotiations between working groups (e.g., on a micro level) more productive. Here are examples of gaps between the culture and the communication:

  1. A “strategic” partner talks about how much they value the relationship, but constantly resorts to “nickel-and-dime” approaches to negotiations;
  2. An internal workgroup, whose mandate is to improve efficiency, continually schedules meetings that fail to move the process forward; or
  3. In dealing with their “internal clients,” a support function provides little in the way of customer service.

Like with my beloved car, small problems with alignment can result in large problems. Tension between management values (stated and, better yet, understood) and actions/initiatives are fodder for cynicism, lack of trust, and unhealthy noise between people and groups. On a smaller scale, individuals can take the lead in clarifying some shared values through questions such as:

  1. Is this partner really that “strategic”?
  2. Do we need to be efficient in addressing efficiency?; and
  3. What is our understanding of “client service” internally and externally?

The answers to these questions may emerge easily, but more likely will spark a tough conversation between those involved. The discussion may force a clarification on what parties should expect (e.g., maybe it is unrealistic to expect to be treated as a “client” all the time).

Ideally, the corporation as a whole will have actions align with values. Individuals, I suspect, see misalignments more often than not. Approached in the right way, with a good degree of benefit of the doubt, I think that some of the smaller ones can be addressed, if not fixed. These little alignment issues can have wide-reaching effects. It may be worth a check.

This originally appeared in the July 2009 newsletter for the Canadian Supply Chain Sector Council (supplychaincanada.org)

 

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