A common challenge for organizations is ensuring that all departments and teams have goal alignment. Lack of alignment not only causes revenue to stagnate, but impacts an organization’s ability to optimize resource allocations, reduce skills gaps and more. Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of teams will not be identical, but they will support a larger purpose/goal of the company. For example, if a public company needs to grow revenue 20% quarter over quarter to meet market expectations, then each department’s individual goals should support that need. Sales has revenue targets; finance teams ensure swift bill processing and collections while account management & delivery teams drive seamless implementation and ongoing product delivery. When teams do not feel that job is connected to the greater good, it becomes challenging to feel valued, energized or even connected to the overall ecosystem. This can create prioritization conflicts, slow processes and ultimately stall goal attainment.
Grew revenue by 38% and developed a highly productive team by resource optimization, cross-training, and goal alignment. A private company active in acquisitions struggled to integrate and optimize individual employee contributions as well as other aspects of the disparate businesses. Customers were interested in what the new company had to offer yet, the new solutions were not easily explained, implemented, or managed. The teams were deeply knowledgeable and talented but had not yet been trained on new products & processes. Moreover, each person continued to drive forward to achieve their previously assigned KPI, but unfortunately, that was not necessarily the appropriate goal for the combined entity. By evaluating and implementing cross-training to fill skills gaps as well as defining company wide and individual goals chaos becomes cooperation. In this example, teams leveraged resources, collaborated on solutions, and ultimately grew revenue 38% to reach company goals.
