Results Depend on Alignment
What keeps your leaders awake at night? The increasing demands of shareholders? The need for immediate results? How can you help them? By ensuring everyone is moving ahead to the same drum beat – alignment. But how?
In your organisation, are the essential elements of vision, leadership, strategies, employees, culture and values scattered and blurred, or aligned, clear and effective?
There are eight critical steps for achieving aligned thinking and behaviour. Model these steps in HR communication and coach the C-levels to do the same for the company. The eight steps are:
- Clear vision, values, strategies, and actions: Articulate what the organisation wants to become, why it is important, what it needs to achieve and how it will do this. Your task is to help the leadership team in its planning and development of these crucial statements of intent.
- Communication strategy and plans: Prepare these documents to assist the leadership team in understanding the strategic role of communication and to track the tactical rollout of communication events and activities.
- Committed and skilled leaders: Provide opportunities for leaders to sharpen their communication skills. Offer individual coaching or find communication coaches to fine-tune messaging and delivery skills for specific events.
- Communication Champions in place: Identify opinion leaders in the workplace to help mobilise employees. Once they are selected, ensure that they are equipped with the skills to deliver tailored messages, prompt open discussion and provide timely and honest feedback. Regular acknowledgement will help keep the communication champions motivated.
- Supporting collateral: Reinforce the messages with electronic and print materials. Remember the visual, auditory and kinesthetic needs of your audiences, as well as their rational and emotional needs. Adopt consistent branding and don't forget to keep it refreshed.
- Organisation-wide engagement program: Initiate a broad program to help employees understand the vision, values, strategies and actions in terms relevant to them and their job. Use this program to link employees to the bigger picture and show them how they contribute from individual and team perspectives.
- Implementation of other communications/business initiatives: Support the rollout of the engagement program through a range of face-to-face and other initiatives (e.g., team briefings). Provide regular opportunities for leaders and communication champions to be role models for the desired behaviours. Make sure communication is embedded in the organisation's performance metrics.
- Measurement, feedback and adjustment: Understand how and where your communication is going, because it is crucial to bringing about sustainable changes in attitudes and behaviours. Adopt measurement and feedback mechanisms that ensure you get timely, useful and cost-effective advice on the clarity of messages and the responses of stakeholders. Make adjustments where necessary.
Deliver these steps successfully and your organisation will be on track for breakthrough results.