Stephen Covey has a very dramatic demonstration that he uses to illustrate organizational alignment. In a large room with hundreds of people, he asks everyone to close their eyes. Next he tells everyone to raise there arm and point to true north. He then tells people to open their eyes and look around.



Everyone is pointing in different directions. He then asks the group to imagine that they had to take ten steps in the direction they were pointing. Obviously total chaos would result. He then pulls out a compass and shows everyone where true north is. With a compass, everyone could take ten steps in the same direction and the entire large group would be going in the same direction without bumping into each other.

Achieving alignment is one of the most elusive dimensions of business success. Applying Covey's demonstration, the first step is deciding which direction do we want to go. Where is “true north” for our organization? This may sound simple, but many organizations fail to get agreement at the top levels of where true north is for the organization. Instead, functional or department leaders create their own idea of true north. For an organization to have a chance of achieving a high degree of alignment, there has to be one true north for the entire organization. The definition of true north includes the vision, mission, and values of the organization. It also includes the key strategic objectives that support the mission and vision.

Once the painstaking and difficult effort of creating a shared view of where the organization is going, the next step is to provide a compass. Too often leaders assume that their job is done when they have crafted a wonderfully written and inspiring vision statement, defined the desired values of the organization, and develop key goals for the company. This is not enough. The process of integrating them into the organization must occur with two-way dialog and discussion. Many of the key business goals create a need for interdependence between functions and departments to achieve. One of the best ways to achieve alignment at the top levels of an organization is to have shared goals and accountability for the key strategic goals. In other words, the senior leaders are judged primarily on the overall results of the business, not just individual objectives.

Not only do goals and objectives have to be aligned, but also processes, practices, and policies need to be consistent with the direction that the company wants to go. Once the vision and mission have been developed, they need to be translated into specific behaviors expected from each person in the organization. For example Milliken and Company, in order to emphasize the importance of customer service, established a company-wide expectation that anyone would interrupt anything they were doing to deal with a customer issue. Care must be taken to make sure that policies and practices are consistent with the direction that the company wants to go.