The 10 signs of bad alignment. Stop the fighting! | Marketing Team ...

Any martial artist or yoga bore will tell you how important alignment is. It makes movement economical, reduces injury, and increases effectiveness.

So how come so many?businesses are catastrophically un-aligned?

The most-often cited misalignments we encounter are between IT and business, and between sales and marketing. New research from Miller Heiman shows clearly that ?world class? sales organisations are defined by their ability to drive sales and marketing alignment. And the continual gap between business need and technology enablement is a constant burr under the saddle for Board-level executives ? because today?s IT and today?s business needs are growing apart.?

But what all this reveals more than anything is that business, sales and technology (as examples) goals must be driven through a true brand and business vision, and driven by people who are themselves aligned.

What gets in the way? Well, under everything lie ten interpersonal, inter-team and business-wide ?misalignment signs? that we should all watch out for ? the 10 signs of bad alignment:

1. Cultural confusion. Nobody knows why things are happening
2. Communication problems. Nobody talks to each other
3. Brand unclarity. Nobody agrees how the business should be seen
4. Marketing/sales budget crisis. Nobody has the money to help
5. Departmental territoriality. Nobody sees responsibility clearly
6. Buying cycle, sales cycle failures. Nobody thinks of the buyers and their needs
7. Product awareness fails. Nobody understands the product and how to evolve it
8. Geographic split and business unit incursion. Nobody?s in the same place (in any sense)
9. Lack of shared insight. Nobody gives information to each other
10. Reward imbalance. Everyone thinks other people are given more than them.

Of these, the first three are the most critical to seeing and removing cultural issues. RD Laing, in his 1970 book?Knots, outlines the kind of confusing knots that people ? and businesses ? tie themselves in all the time. They?re painfully true to read and still absolutely relevant to business decisions. Here?s just one that shows how faulty understanding of others causes cascading communication and culture failure:

?They?are?playing?a?game.??They?are?playing?at?not?playing?a?game. ?

If?I?show?them?I?see?they?are,?I?shall?break?the?rules?and?they?will?punish?me.?

I?must?play?their?game,?of?not?seeing?I?see?the?game.?

Can you get rid of these problems, completely? Of course not. They?re societal norms: things that happen when more than one person is in a room with too much powerpoint and too little sense of validation.

But you can be aware that your business is a society, a culture ? first and foremost. Particularly in today?s less rigid, more social organisations. The next step is to clearly understand that cultural and communication misalignment is a major factor ? possibly the major factor ? that holds you back; and to know that to address those points you have to emphasise that you are above all a?human organisation.

And a human organisation requires more than business plans and strategies. It requires a cultural strategy, fusing brand, content, business and people, and most critically showing how all your people are part of your vision and responsible for it ? to thrive and grow.?

Source: http://www.marketingteamdirect.com/mtd-blog/the-10-signs-of-bad-alignment-stop-the-fighting

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