Alignment Beats Consistency
What do we want?
Consistency!
When do we want it?
Immediately!
Great! Let’s be consistent FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS.
Yes, let's go!
And of course from that point onwards, everyone does their own version of whatever it is and any progress immediately falls apart.
Consistency is overrated.
The word is overused, and its use is rarely thought through.
Why is this, and why is alignment the stronger concept for leadership teams?
Here’s four ideas to consider.
1. Consistency in what?
The idea that ‘we just need to be consistent’ is far too simplistic.
What, in everything?
The practices and strategies that an organisation really needs a high level of consistency requires some careful selection.
The best starting point is in policy and procedure. If something really does need to be the same, then it needs to be documented and all of that needs to be easily accessible and widely understood.
Beyond that, if you want it to be part of the culture you need to make it explicit and follow up.
Consistency does not just refer to what is done, but also how it is done - high expectations, quality customer service or a positive outlook. The standards for this might be met in varying different ways.
There is also plenty that you do NOT want to be consistent, because you have employed people with a wide range of professional and life experiences who are capable of achieving great outcomes in different ways.
So if you do not want everything to be consistent, what do you want?
I am going to draw a distinction between consistency and alignment. By the former I mean delivering whatever aspect of work in the same defined way. Alignment is more complex.
2. What is alignment?
In senior leadership team terms it is about
A high level of buy-in for what the organisation wishes to achieve.
Clarity on what is meant by true success.
A deep understanding of the key priorities which informs the decisions they make day to day as individuals and as a team
Understanding this is an ongoing process for them to shape and uphold.
Under this definition consistency is fixed and alignment is continuous. Senior leaders have to live and breathe the former, and work together to ensure their messages to the wider staff are not mixed.
As with consistency there is a question of what must, and must not, be aligned. Those discussions come from the dialogue amongst senior leaders in their meetings and beyond.
It is a case of ‘less is more’. The more areas where you want to see alignment, the harder it will be to drive it through the breadth and depth of the whole organisation.
3. Alignment builds speed
When senior leaders are aligned, decisions are taken more quickly, even on potentially more difficult or controversial topics.
As individual team members increasingly understand the principles upon which they must work, they form a guide to cut through the details.
Leadership teams who are not aligned are incredibly wasteful. They do not value the clarity that a new initiative requires to take root. Individual versions of this only create confusion amongst the rest of the staff body. They do not show sufficient unity for everyone else to take them seriously. They do not generate trust throughout the organisation, which means it takes so much longer for direct reports to get on board and stay there.
Alignment also creates engagement. The extent to which staff can be inspired by seeing their leaders work in harmony is underrated. People prefer not to have a false start or to have to sit together for an hour after a meeting to work out what was actually said. They hate relaunches, and the wasted effort they made the first time around.
Alignment helps employees understand their role in the overall success of the organisation. This has an added bonus, in that it can support others in thinking a place around the top table could be for them the next time one comes up.
4. Room for innovation
A workplace where employees, at any level, feel they have no opportunity to shape the organisation is not one which will attract and keep the best.
Alignment leaves greater room for the how.
When leaders agree on the key priorities, and their daily behaviour backs this up, it leaves more scope for the ‘how’ question. When employees know and understand the ‘what’, they can get to work on how it can best be achieved.
Strong levels of alignment creates the conditions for innovation and growth. Best practice can be developed and shared, then developed further. Faster implementation allows for earlier evaluation, and for any necessary tweaks in messaging or expectations. It allows risks to be identified and for them to be collectively dealt with.
Alignment makes it much harder for constituent parts of the organisation to compete with each other. It demands that collaboration is the way forward.
Remember that
Alignment means that organisations can stay ahead of the game and focus on external competition and not internal politics.
Achieving and maintaining strong levels of alignment is a skill in itself. Too few leadership teams put the time in to getting it right.
How can I help you?
1. One to one coaching programmes for senior leaders who are swamped by their jobs so they can thrive in life. Click here to discover where you are on your journey from Frantic to Fulfilled? Just 5 minutes of your time and you will receive a full personalised report with guidance on your next steps.
2. Team coaching programmes - working IN a team is not the same as working AS a team and yet they are often treated as if they are the same. I help teams move from the former to the latter, and generate huge shifts in productivity and outcomes.
3. Talks, workshops and seminars - including topics relevant to the two areas above plus explaining Gen Z to Gen X and dealing with the intergenerational workplace. Speaker showreel here.
4. My book The Snowflake Myth will be published in 2025 - to receive a free chapter (when available 😬) please click here.
