What does team alignment mean?
Team alignment is the term used to describe how all team members of an organisation collectively work towards the same vision and goals. The more united a team is, the more productive it will be. When teams are on the same page, understand and have common goals, you’re more likely to experience positive team alignment. Team alignment is vital as it leads to increased productivity, employee engagement, performance and loyalty. Finding team alignment isn’t a walk in the park; some team members might have difficulty with workloads, or you might find team members have competing priorities. A lack of team alignment can be witnessed across the business at every level, from the executive team to the departmental and individual levels. In this blog, we share some common signs your teams are not aligned and steps you can take to improve team alignment.
Unclear mission
If your team members aren’t clear on what the business wants to achieve in the long term, they have no destination to work towards. Having clarity on the goals of the business provides the direction that everyone can see and work towards together. To prevent this lack of clarity, you need to communicate clearly and frequently with your team to ensure everyone is on the same page and rowing in the same direction, as we like to say.
Conflict
A little conflict is healthy; the ability to challenge one another and have healthy debates does no harm, however, when unhealthy conflict occurs it gets in the way of healthy discussion and effective relationships. You will know you have conflict if you witness people blaming one another, you get people being extremely defensive, or you get team members unwilling to cooperate and generally showing signs of disengagement.
Lack of commitment
A lack of commitment by team members can result in the team heading in different directions. If you spot team members lacking energy or motivation, taking longer than usual on tasks, or turning up late and uninterested, these tell-tale signs might show a lack of commitment.
Communication problems
In order to stay aligned as a team, you need to communicate your goals and strategy. If your teams aren’t communicating effectively and collaborating with one another, it’s a clear sign you have some issues that need to be addressed. Your team should be regularly talking to one another; a silent team is often a confused team and not good for the business overall.
Poor collaboration
Another clear sign of misalignment is poor collaboration. If your team members aren’t in a trusting environment, it shows there’s no psychological safety, this can result in them not supporting one another. When you have no psychological safety, you can end up with silos, conflicts, and a lack of communication. To build better collaboration, you need to build a culture of trust, accountability, and feedback.
Little to no accountability
When there’s no accountability or clear expectations set, this can create mixed messages and a culture of ‘who is doing what and when?’ It’s important that all team members are of aware of their expectations and held accountable for the part they play.
How to improve your team alignment
Develop a clear vision and mission
Your team can’t row in the same direction if they don’t know which direction to go in. It’s important your team members know what the vision and mission are and how the business aims to get there; this is where a goal-setting framework like OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) comes in handy! With OKRs, all goals will be clear to every member of the organisation. OKRs break down the company priorities into smaller annual or quarterly objectives that are going to help move the needle towards the priorities.
Communicate
You can never communicate enough! Communicate the strategy so everyone understands where the business is heading. Communicate the parts your team members play in reaching this strategy. Communicate who is accountable for actions, and be open, and transparent. It’s important as a leader to be aware of different communication styles that might be preferred by your team members.
Use the OKR framework
As mentioned before, OKRs help align individual and company goals by setting specific, measurable, and achievable objectives that are tracked using key results. It’s important to involve your team members in the process of setting OKRs. Don’t set them for your team and expect them to get on board; by allowing them to be a part of the process, they’ll have input into the objectives set, make suggestions and feel part of the team. After all, if they’re going to work on achieving this OKR, they need to know it’s manageable. Ensure you come together regularly to look at your OKRs as a team; this doesn’t need to be a lengthy meeting, a short 15-minute sync should be enough to discuss any struggles, issues or wins! It’s vital that OKRs are not just set and forgotten. OKRs need to be looked at frequently to understand if you’re on the way to hitting them or not, and if anything can be done differently.
Track your OKRs in dedicated OKR software
With dedicated OKR software, you can have full transparency throughout your company so that each team’s goals are displayed for everyone to see; this helps keep employees accountable for their targets and ensures alignment.
Celebrate team wins
Recognising individual and team achievements, no matter how small or big, encourages employees and reminds them that you value their input. Tying accomplishments to the business strategy shows the impact individuals have on that and go some way to fulfilling their purpose.
An aligned team is a productive team
When a team is aligned, they can work together collaboratively on solutions to problems, leading to a more practical approach to achieving the organisational goals. Failure to focus on team alignment will result in below-average performance, wasted resources and it will take longer to achieve your business outcomes.
To find out what steps you can take to better align your teams, we’re all ears, book a call with us – we’re always happy to talk.