10 Sep Chaos, Carnage, and Clarity

When there are many possible areas of organisational improvement, where do you start and how do you choose an approach to the improvement?

Organisations often invest in team performance, leadership development, and strategy retreats. It seems obvious that leadership behaviour, strategic direction and team enablement should align. But what happens when these developmental approaches don’t align? Poor alignment between these factors is neither efficient nor effective. It’s a common issue, and one worth exploring. 

This came to mind during a recent client briefing. A dynamic new CEO is leading a fresh executive team and wants to focus on team health, strategy review, and improving execution. He had selected a few well-known authors—one for teams, one for strategy, and one for execution. Each approach is valuable in the right context, but it wasn’t clear whether one or all would work together for his specific organisation.

As an analogy, Joe is a sprinter. He was the fastest in his city and one of the fastest in the country—possibly even the universe, as he liked to joke. Recently he decided to compete in a fun 100m sprint race against his office colleagues, and so started up a short training program to get his sprint back on. His friend Mannie joined him in some of the training. Joe is built for speed, and he leaves Mannie floundering and flapping behind him over 100m.

Mannie is an endurance athlete. He cannot sprint during his 5km and 10km runs along pathways and farm tracks – it is not sustainable and puts his body at considerable risk of injury. Mannie has a few scars to prove that. However – over those longer distances Mannie leaves Joe gasping behind him – Joe is not an endurance guy.

Joa and Mannie train differently. While using each other’s training methods might not hurt, it won’t make either of them better at what they excel at. Just like sprinters and endurance runners need different training, organisations require tailored and aligned approaches to strategy, leadership, and teams.

Is your organisation an endurance athlete or a sprinter? For organisations, this conversation falls into a space known as organisational theory – somewhere in the intersection of organisation design, strategy, leadership and teams. Join us on 18th September for an interactive WorldsView Conversation, where we’ll explore some factors that help you to align team, leadership, and strategy development. Learn more and register here. At WorldsView, we specialise in aligning strategy, design, leadership, and team dynamics to create a cohesive path to success. Reach out to us for help with Strategy, Design, Leadership and Teams in your organisation. 

How does your organisation approach aligning strategy, leadership, and teams? Share your thoughts in the comments below. We would love to hear from you.