Management Perspectives

For organisations to thrive in the turbulent years ahead, managers must rethink how they approach their strategies to achieve growth and success. A more holistic approach is needed which considers a company’s purpose and commercial aims alongside the needs and abilities of their people. Here is a guide to finding the connections between your people and business strategies, and an explanation of the benefits that this path will offer your organisation.

Why do we need alignment?

It’s often said that a business is nothing without its people. But many managers and organisations often overlook the importance of this saying when crafting strategies for their future. Instead of seeing their people and business plans as one, they consider them separately and miss opportunities that would come through alignment. But failing to do this in a timely manner risks your companies following the doomed paths of the likes of Blackberry, Nokia, and other former business giants who have either ceased to exist or whose glory days have ended for good. Consider what information you need to know when designing a new product or service or preparing to launch your company in a new market.

Who is our customer, what impacts them, how are their needs shifting, and which mission critical deliverables do we need to prioritise to meet their demands—today, and tomorrow? The output of these questions will inform your business strategy in terms of research, marketing, and financing. But it also has a huge impact on your people. Without understanding the human impact of new plans, you will not understand what strategy is needed in terms of recruitment, training, engagement, and upskilling. Looking at the composition of your teams in the context of your business strategies ensures that the right skill sets and resources are available at the right time. It also enables managers to act purposefully, with a deep understanding of who and how they will be impacted by your decisions, and prioritise meaningful actions that will move the needle on an organisation’s growth and impact. In short, you must take care of your people implications and consequences, to successfully deliver your business strategy.

What prevents alignment?

Many managers make the mistakes of thinking that you can align your people and business strategies by merely ordering it from above. But business leaders with this mindset, who believe decisions should be made by those at the top and executed by the middle and the bottom of the organisation, are the ones who risk limiting their company’s innovation and creativity. Remember, the more diverse your thinking, the richer your decision-making abilities will become. Ignoring the experiences and perspectives of those around you will only weaken your understanding of the issues at hand. Not considering or consulting those who will be most affected by your strategies is a mistake that has strong repercussions for your company’s culture and ability to achieve its goals. It can breed resistance and resentment from those affected by the decisions, who feel they are undervalued and unheard. An absence of diverse thought and experience in strategy development can also create blind spots for managers looking to enact changes. It is paramount that your priorities, plans, and purpose align if they are to be accepted by your stakeholders. This is where a businessled, people-driven strategy comes in. It is about focusing on ensuring that all your people, without exception, are considered and included. It is also about ensuring that all of your customers’ and consumers’ needs are understood and appreciated. Taking this diverse and inclusive approach can aid how you prioritise attraction, retention, selection, and deployment of talent to deliver on your strategy, and breed more innovative solutions to problems and opportunities that arise.

How do we achieve alignment

Creating alignment is not a speedy process, but there are steps managers can take to kickstart the process. To start, you must establish what is inside and outside of your scope to achieve a better understanding of how various factors could influence your decisions and success. Carry out a review of your competencies and culture, those seen and unseen rules of engagement and ways of working that are adopted by your people. How do these align with your purpose and plans? Knowing the answers to these questions will inform you on what could enable or disable your strategic plans and allows you to take evidence-based decisions on creating a more inclusive, equitable environment.

Communication is also hugely important in achieving alignment and acceptance from your people. Managers should be open to accepting feedback and answering questions on why and how the strategies will be implemented to avoid fear and resistance from your employees. Devise an exciting communication plan that builds in reflective touch points and review moments with those involved. Engaging employee resource groups as stress-testers and identifying culture champions whose role it is to promote the benefits of your strategies and plans across the business can help you to identify any issues that may arise from those they represent and enact changes in respect of those findings.

A final tip would be to explore the organisational benefits of love-based leadership. It is, in my opinion, the greatest capability that any leader and business can possess. It enables business leaders to create an environment where everyone performs at their best and feels they belong, without condition. It means training and development can be tailored to your people’s needs, under-represented voices are represented and heard in meetings, and leaders can make difficult decisions with the backing of their teams as they know that they are pursuing the right course of action for the right reasons. Love-based leaders are driven by a deeper purpose and can deliver sustainable, meaningful change—the likes of which empowers others to execute a long-term strategy for the benefit of the consumer, communities, and company in which they serve.

Change is happening in the global business environment. But putting our heads in the sand and carrying on as usual, without consideration for how we can integrate our people and business plans, will leave us defenceless to the turbulence on the horizon. Committed, lovebased leadership is needed more than ever. We must look at these strategies in parallel and with respect to our organisational purpose, and seek alignment that draws on our strengths—both now and in the future.