Aligning Your B to B Company to a Shared Vision for Success

Why is it so important?

Research suggests that only 30% of organizations execute their strategies effectively, and 95% of managers say they do not fully understand what the strategy is within their organization.¹ Often overlooked and ignored, this is why internal alignment is so important for B to B organizations.

• Misalignment creates a ripple effect.
  When senior executives clearly express the organization’s mission, but choose to invest time and resources into initiatives that don’t comply with that mission, it creates mixed messages around priorities, causing a ripple effect downward in the organization.

• B to B competitors are highly intertwined.
  The industries built upon B to B models are almost always derived on interpersonal relationships that rely heavily on trust, with competition often neck-and-neck. And in an environment that relies so heavily on individual networks, misalignment can be identified even outside the board room, making it a weapon of both power and destruction.

• It defines the outcome for your business.
  Setting aside the interpersonal, strategic alignment drives efficiency, productivity, and ultimately a successful bottom line.

How do you properly engage stakeholders to align on a unified vision?

It all boils down to communication, and the strategies for effective communication require the leadership team to do it early, often and simply.

1. Communicate Early: Align on the Goal

In order to identify the objective, you must first identify the challenge. Take the time to hear from stakeholders across the organization on what their perception is both internally and externally of your brand, its service/product and the value it brings to your customer. Once challenges and pain points are identified, you have a better view into the objective you should be aiming to achieve. From there, the vision must come to life in a roadmap that outlines the directional shifts that will affect each arm of your business. A truly unified vision is one that impacts every function and aspect of your business.

Ways to Implement

Stakeholder and Customer Interviews

SWOT Analysis of Your Business

Service + Product Development Roadmap

2. Communicate Often: Share Appropriately

Engaging employees in the planning process helps creates a sense of ownership. Actively involving multiple tiers of management reinforces the value they bring to the organization and amplifies their role in the success of the initiative at hand. It says “we couldn’t do this without you,” instead of “we’re doing this to you.”

Ways to Implement

Internal Launch Campaign for Employee Adoption

Customer Validation Research

3. Communicate Simply: Make it Straight-Forward

According to Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the best-selling book Switch, “What looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity.” Leaders can often get so invested in their high-level agenda, that they can lose teammates along the way. External stakeholders need to understand why the organization exists and what value it provides for its customers, vendors and the market. Internal stakeholders need to know where the organization is going so they can align their own initiatives to a greater sense of purpose.

Ways to Implement

Department-Specific Goal Tracking

Brand Promise Evolution

Where do you begin?

Let’s discuss how we can develop a tailored plan to help you engage employees effectively in order to better achieve your organization’s  strategic goals.

Source: ¹. Inc.com