Strategic Alignment

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STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

Transforming a Tactical Implementation into a Strategic Engagement

By Walt Zeglinski

Too often organizations are content to focus their training and development implementations on tactical necessities – when, where and how. But reaching consensus on why is far more critical to long term success. A results-producing, strategic engagement requires the top-down and bottom-up alignment of the entire organization, from strategic intent to systemic application.

This type of committed execution can transform a training and development project into a mission critical initiative that achieves bottom line business results.

ASSESS: Solving the Right Problem The goal of the Assess stage of the Engagement Process is to identify and examine the priority business challenges and their root causes. This is not a training needs analysis but an effort to gather data to develop fact-based insights into the performance gaps and best practices that have an impact on achieving sales goals. The Assess stage of the Engagement Process should uncover the key performance factors to enable a strategic plan or initiative and increase employee alignment. If successfully executed, it will address many of the frontline engagement and alignment issues that can undermine sales force “buy-in” to training and development implementations. The Assess stage is typically implemented in two steps – Performance Profiling and Fieldwork.

What are the keys to a strategically aligned engagement?

Performance Profiling Integrity Solutions® believes to truly change organizational and individual behavior you have to approach your training and development initiatives as organizational change projects.

This is best accomplished through a process designed to address the barriers and enablers that impact a strategic alignment. Integrity’s Engagement Process model provides an executable “game plan” to overcome the complexities of the change process and ensure measurable results. This process for strategic alignment includes six steps: ASSESS, COLLABORATE, CUSTOMIZE, ALIGN, IMPLEMENT AND SUSTAIN.

Performance Profiling is a diagnostic assessment process that measures the key performance dimensions that impact success. It should examine not only skills and practices, but also attitudes, beliefs and values. In my experience, skills and practices are unlikely to take hold unless individuals are committed at a deeper level. Performance is quite simply more often about who people are than what people know. The objectives for a Performance Profile should be: • To obtain a baseline measurement of individual, team and/or organizational performance • To determine if there are any trends that may be consistently hindering performance • To identify the development areas of greatest need for individuals and teams • To provide a coaching tool for managers to improve their people in a predictable and consistent fashion Fieldwork A field-based process to determine the daily practices of your team is critical to validating the information discovered in performance profiling. It will also provide an excellent opportunity for capturing best practices and will enhance your insights into the change-readiness of an organization.

To maximize the results of fieldwork, a structured interview process must be developed and real-time work practices must be observed. This will help an organization to determine:

7()4% 0!0%2 • What’s working and what’s not in support of achieving their stated goals • The effectiveness of current processes and tools in developing a customer focus • Best practices of individual peak performers in identified critical success factors By integrating the data from Performance Profiling and Fieldwork, findings can be examined and recommendations proposed. However, given the potential diversity of information that is likely to be gathered, it’s helpful to utilize a system for aggregating and analyzing the key issues. Based on our researched benchmarks and decades of experience dealing with world-class, customer-focused organizations, we organize our findings around what we call the Performance Driver Model. This model helps us to collaborate on recommendations that can be implemented and sustained, as part of a results-producing behavioral change process.

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Leadership Problem Solving and Decision Making With the data from Performance Profiling and Fieldwork now consolidated into a report, it is critical to develop top down commitment from senior management and process owners.

Supported by subject matter experts, if a leadership team will engage in a problem solving and decision making workshop, they can arrive at a common understanding of the challenges uncovered in the Assess phase. If well facilitated, leaders and their team will build consensus and alignment on the changes required to optimize sales performance, and leverage best practices.

This workshop is typically a 1 or 2 day experience, but is somewhat dependant on the complexity of the challenges that are being examined, and the importance of the sales initiatives that they support. The individuals that facilitate these workshops typically have executive-level experience and some expertise in change management. We utilize a structured process with tools that enable team synergy and collaboration while leveraging the know-how and creativity of an organization’s leadership team and subject matter experts. It also helps to identify a clear lineof-sight between the solutions to be deployed and the strategic plan and goals of the organization.

There are three key outcomes to a successful Problem Solving and Decision Making Workshop: 1. Increased awareness of the performance drivers that can enable the success of the change initiative.

2. Consensus on the barriers that impact these performance drivers and the organization’s ability to achieve desired results.

3. Facilitated problem solving will drive alignment within the leadership team on priority high impact solutions, given available resources.

COLLABORATE: Building Consensus and Commitment In the Collaborate phase of an engagement, the leadership team reaches consensus and commitment on the focus, design, resources and metrics for a solution. A company’s leadership team must come to a shared understanding of the performance challenges the organization faces and commit to doing what is necessary to overcome them. They must also pool their collective talents and experience to make decisions on the actionable solutions that they will support to achieve their goals.

An executable deployment plan that defines who, what, when and how to action each solution. This will provide for the allocation of accountable resources, with timelines and milestones to track and measure progress and results, usually within 90 days.

CUSTOMIZE: Developing a Purpose-Built Solution The Customize stage integrates field-relevant challenges and best practices into the behavior change process and “hardwires” the new skills, practices, attitudes and beliefs into the existing processes and systems of an organization.

To ensure participants are fully engaged in changing their behaviors, it is important to provide realistic and practical

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applications that demonstrate easily recognizable best practices. In addition, a well executed customization will reinforce an organization’s mission, vision and values, and reflect its strategies and goals. Combined with process and systems integration, this will go a long way to facilitating cultural acceptability.

In our experience, a successfully customized behavior change process will be anchored to a mission critical strategy, such as re-branding or a new product launch. And, it must take into account the unique influences facing a company, industry and market. Some customization options you might consider include: • Leadership message that links to the mission, vision, values, strategies and goals • Company/industry/market specific language • Integration of the key strategies to be emphasized • Most common company/industry/market challenges • Best practice skills, practices, attitudes and beliefs • High impact positioning for products and services • Demonstration of value to customers • Validation for key models and tools • Reinforcement of specific organizational goals • Pre and post workshop planning tools to sustain application • Specific step-by-step process outcomes • Logos and other identification/ownership opportunities • Linkage to previous learning and language • Other Best Practice behaviors ALIGN: Making the Main Thing the Main Thing Once a solution is agreed upon, it is critical to Align the leadership team in their support of the change initiative. We typically recommend a one-half day Executive Briefing with the senior management team to enhance their understanding of the potential barriers to their change process and gain their support for its success. There are three keys to the Align stage of the engagement process: 1. Determine Change Readiness – To establish a foundation for success, a leadership team must come to a common understanding of what is required within a change process and the organization’s current status in terms of its ability to execute the process. The dialogue on change readiness is a by-product of the field observation and interviews conducted during the Assess stage. However, if the issues run deeper it might be wise to survey the senior management and the internal team to determine the root causes of misalignment

and their impact on change readiness. A one to two day leadership problem-solving and decision-making session can then be utilized to reach consensus on potential solutions to overcoming the barriers to change.

2. Design a Communication Strategy – In a business climate characterized by revolving priorities and competing agendas, it is essential for a behavior change initiative to have the public support of key leadership, ideally the CEO. To accomplish this requires a thoughtful strategy for communicating the importance of the initiative relative to the organization’s mission, vision, values, strategies and goals. An effective communication plan will include frequent communication through a variety of sources but clearly communicate the “burning platform” required to get the attention of the participants, over the noise that can distract them from sustaining the change process long enough to ensure success. We typically recommend that the President or CEO also endorse the behavior change process itself by writing an introduction to the program materials.

3. Develop Top-Down Commitment – For all the reasons stated above, it is easy for senior managers to get distracted by their diverse responsibilities within an organization. However, without their uncompromising commitment to a change initiative, it has little hope for success. In our experience, unless the potential barriers are addressed, they are likely necessary to engage the team in a one to two day problem-solving and decision-making session to ensure awareness, alignment and action. Without leadership accountability for removing the barriers to success an initiative is almost sure to die. It may also be worthwhile to develop the support of the senior management from departments, and function “upstream and downstream” from the participants’ area of responsibility.

IMPLEMENT: Deploying a Process not an Event In the Implement stage of the engagement model, the deployment of a solution is finalized and executed. There are a wide range of options for successful implementation but, in terms of facilitation, there are two potential approaches – internal staff and content provider/partner staff. Both of these options have their benefits and their traps. Here are a few examples of benefits of each: Certified Internal Staff Facilitators • Champions to sustain the behavior change process over time • Relevant insights and applications from the company/ industry/market • Local support to ease logistical concerns to an ongoing change process

7()4% 0!0%2 Partner Staff Facilitation • Deeper understanding of concepts, models and tools • Experience with the process design • Access to expertise to “trouble shoot” implementation challenges Whether you decide to certify internal staff and develop champions for the behavior change process or tap into the experience of a partner’s facilitators, you can achieve your sales and growth goals. However, if the management team does not accept their responsibility in the overall success of this initiative, it will surely fail.

The prestigious McKinsey consulting firm believes frontline managers to be the pivotal job in creating organizational change. Indeed, if your management team will commit to the role of “change champions” you have significantly increased the potential for success with your training and development initiative. In fact, when managers accept accountability for some facet of the development process, the opportunity for reaching your goals is exponentially improved.

Finally, like any process for change, it is important to focus on capturing and communicating progress, results and success stories – to galvanize the commitment within the organization. From our experience, technology can play a vital role in this process, driving alignment and accountability, while providing a platform for information sharing. Our Navigator software and website are an excellent example of a technology-enabled implementation.

SUSTAIN: Moving the Needle on Performance In order to Sustain the momentum of a change process, leadership must have a plan for keeping the behaviors “on the front burner” long enough for them to achieve your desired outcomes and become your “way of doing business.”

After the completion of the Advanced monthly sessions and some regular developmental feedback, we recommend a Coaching program for frontline managers. Research shows that effective coaching is a key performance driver that helps sales people realize their full potential. Our experience confirms that the best practice implementation design to accelerate performance improvement requires integrating our coaching behavior change process shortly after the completion of the eight week Integrity Selling follow up sessions. The key components of a successful coaching program are:

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• A goal achievement system • Understanding of the leadership style of highly effective coaches • Assessment of dominant leadership style • Coaching pre-call planning and post-call analysis tools for field sales meetings • Understanding behavior styles in order to increase coaching effectiveness • Increasing the ability to diagnose potential areas of improvement • Ask effective questions to guide coaching discussions and prescribe specific actions • Build self-confidence to achieve more than they believe they are capable of.

A second PDP assessment should be conducted to determine measurable performance improvement against baseline metrics. It will serve to validate the growth of sales revenue within the sales team. The results will also enable sales managers to set individual development goals and focus on taking their team’s performance to the next level. The ongoing application of the Navigator online capabilities will support systemic approach, over time, to individualize development and track key data on the agreed upon behavioral, business impact metrics, and diagnostic feedback on sales strategy and tactics.

Reserving your Seat at the Table Building a strategic link between training and development, and your organization’s strategic goals isn’t always easy, but is worth the challenges you’ll face. If you can expand your focus from the tactical requirements of implementing a program to adopting a process for driving strategic alignment, you will elevate the importance of your training and ensure your seat at the strategic table. If you’ll trust our formula for a successful, strategic change initiative – ASSESS, COLLABORATE, CUSTOMIZE, ALIGN, IMPLEMENT and SUSTAIN – you are sure to get leadership’s attention and achieve the results your organization expects and deserves.

Walt Zeglinski is the CEO & Chief Client Advocate for Integrity Solutions a performance improvement firm that specializes in changing the way organizations acquire and retain loyal customers. Walt has also served as President of Huthwaite Inc, a world-renowned research, training and consulting organization best known as the creators of SPIN Selling. With over 20 years of successful experience in the corporate performance industry, Walt applies his talent and expertise to successfully diagnose, plan and implement practical solutions for complex business challenges.

You may contact Walt at: 602-253-5700 walt@integritysolutions.com www.integritysolutions.com