Just take a moment and cast your mind back…
To the days when you first launched your company.
Can you recall the feelings of passion, excitement, and thrill of the vision you experienced?
Of course, you can.
It’s why we do what we do, isn’t it?
Here’s the thing though, despite the initial passion and excitement, 80% of companies fail.
And that’s because there’s a disconnect between emotional alignment, vision, strategy & action.
Even the 20% of companies that succeed, can still have issues closing this gap.
Companies that generate millions and billions in revenue can still have this disconnect. The gap just flies beneath the radar, hidden by an abundance of revenue.
However, we’ve seen that when this gap is minimized or even closed, companies go on to MASSIVELY outperform.
It has always been considered that executives design the strategy and the rest of the company executes. That doesn’t need to be the case.
CEOs who empower everyone in the company are connected to both strategy and execution enjoy the journey more, create better leaders and often achieve more.
The Bridge Between Alignment, Strategy and Execution:
The data below shows the misalignment a lot of companies can experience between departments:
- A recent survey of more than 400 Global CEOs found that executional excellence was the #1 challenge they faced, coming at the top of some 80 other issues.
- In a study of 8,000 managers in more than 250 companies, respondents said they were three times as likely to miss performance commitments due to insufficient support from other units.
- Another study of 144 C-level executives found that only 10% said they implemented two-thirds or more of their core strategic initiatives in the year.
How do you know if you have a strategy execution gap?
A way to figure out if your company has an execution problem is to look at your strategic targets and compare them to your KPIs.
If your company isn’t achieving an acceptable percentage of your targets then you have a strategy execution gap.
And here’s the problem…
There’s far more focus on strategy than execution. We set monthly goals, quarterly targets and 5 year plans and may not put enough focus on how those goals are going to be achieved, lead by lead, meeting by meeting, day by day, week by week.
Sir Steven Brailford led the Great British cycling team to an impressive Olympic medal haul of 8 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze at London 2012 and 6 gold, 4 silver and 1 bronze in Rio 2016.
He put the success down to the 1% mantra and below is what he said when he was explaining it to the BBC.
“The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of, that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.
“There’s fitness and conditioning, of course, but there are other things that might seem on the periphery, like sleeping in the right position, having the same pillow when you are away, and training in different places.
“They’re tiny things but if you clump them together it makes a big difference.”
How does it happen?
When you first launched your company it may have been just you and a small group of believers.
You set the goals, tracked the KPIs, did all the work so there wasn’t really a breakdown in communication.
As your company grows and you hire more and more team members, those team members then come under managers who then come under departments.
As the company continues to grow, the communication around strategy can break down. Like a game of Telephone or Operator.
Strategy gets handed down:
- Not everyone fully understands it
- People may feel fear feelings about it and not communicate that
- There isn’t a daily plan on how to achieve
- Targets are missed
Space for creativity disintegrates and connection to the companies Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) is all but lost.
How do we close the gap?
Well, would welcome speaking directly to you as a CEO and understanding more about your company (feel free to schedule here), the gap could be a result of a few things:
> Poor leadership due to lack of training, connection to the culture, values
>Low or no team cohesion due to lack of systematic process
>Not utilizing project management systems due to lack of focus on adoption
>Incorrect role allocation for employee due to hiring process that isn’t fully aligned
> No consistent connection to company purpose and vision due to it not being integrated into the day to day
Haha this is like when you forget someone’s name you’ve been acquainted with for years.
That last one is the biggie!
Bring values and purpose front and center quickly. Employee job satisfaction scores will elevate and company growth will likely increase.
According to me:), the first step to connecting this gap is alignment, aligning your feelings and beliefs around your company’s purpose and values.
Can you unite your company if you’re not 100% aligned with it yourself?
Let’s look at the undesired feelings and limiting beliefs you might have around your company purpose at the moment.
Undesired Feelings:
- Confused
- Frustrated
- Anxiety
- Doubt
- Disconnected
Limiting Beliefs:
- I’m confused as to why my team members are leaving.
- I’m frustrated with our lack of company growth.
- I’m anxious about achieving our goals.
- I doubt our ability to adapt and implement processes and systems.
- I feel disconnected from my team.
Image Credit APUCIS.com
These feelings and beliefs lead to misaligned actions, initially from you, and eventually your team members. And they add up.
Ask yourself, are you taking the time with your team to get emotionally aligned? If not, schedule with us here and we will show you how to integrate this in your process.
Let’s get aligned with your company purpose so you can start taking action towards closing this gap.
What feelings would you like to have around your company’s purpose and vision?
Desired Feelings:
- Aligned
- Inspired
- Supported
- Free-flowing
- Appreciated
Empowering beliefs:
- I’m aligned with my employees personal and business purposes
- Our clear and impactful purpose inspires us
- My team supports me and I support them
- We love the work we do and it comes naturally to us
- My team values the company culture
As you start to adopt these empowering beliefs and take the action we’re going to outline in just a moment, you will start to see your work platform elevate, productivity and creativity go up as well as revenue.
The action steps you need to take moving forward are as followed:
ACTION 1] Re-align with your Massive Transformative Purpose.
Set aside time to remind yourself why you started your company. It can be industry-specific or describe future business activities.
This purpose defines the reason your company exists.
It should reflect how your company changes the lives of others and inspire members of your organization to create their most intelligent work. Thus, contributing to closing the gap.
This article can help you figure out what it is exactly your company does.
ACTION 2] Define clear goals.
In order to focus your companies efforts on an end goal, it’s important you break down the process into smaller, desirable goals.
Set clear targets for departments, managers, and employees so everyone knows where they stand, what’s expected of them, and has the space to be creative within their job role.
ACTION 3] Decide the KPIs and Metrics that influence those goals and track them weekly.
Goals aren’t achieved with metrics and KPIs. These are the crux of your company and ensure the efforts of your team members are focused down a path that creates the desired outcome.
Below is a step-by-step process to help you monitor relevant KPIs.
- Create a simple, one-page strategic plan and capture the strategic objectives that are most important.
- Consider; financial goals, customer goals, operations goals, resources goals, and competition and risk goals.
- For each KPI you choose to track, set targets that define what success is.
- Create a daily action plan that sets out how you expect to achieve this success.
- Review KPIs in weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings to keep them front of mind and monitor your targets.
- Review and adjust KPI targets when there are important strategic changes within your company or in the market.
- Reward success and celebrate achieving your targets and goals.
ACTION 4] Create a clear plan of execution using project management software to ensure employees carry out focused, intelligent work.
Identify the current systems you have in place within your company and how you think they can be improved.
Define where the specific success gaps are within your business that needs to be bridged.
Hire and collaborate with a project manager and introduce PM systems that assist you in automating growth.
The project management software we adore at Lifestyle Perfected is Asana.
One of our clients Bobby Brown, CEO of Mercato, was able to scale his company from $60,000 to $10,000,000 in monthly revenue in under 2 years by using our alignment methodology.
“I feel amazing in my life and leadership of my company. I’ve elevated my health, mindset, company revenue and connection with my team. The Alignment Methodology has literally changed my brain patterns for the better.”
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you elevate the alignment within your company, reply to this email or alternatively, you can see our programs for CEOs and for teams here.
We’re also excited to announce the CEO Circle. A group for CEOs to elevate emotional intelligence, increase impact and legacy wealth. If you are CEO and/or a founder with $1 million or more in revenue or assets apply here.
Sending you love,
Nadav
& the Lifestyle Perfected team
