Pillars of Excellence Series: Aligning Ambition With Action
Back in grade school, I was one of those students who actually enjoyed word problems in math class. They helped me visualize the applications of the formulas we were learning. One concept that particularly resonated with me was how a small two-degree change in angle could, over a distance, lead us significantly off course from our intended endpoint.
This principle is strikingly relevant in the business world. The degree to which we align our daily actions with our overarching ambitions can dramatically affect our destination. Just as in navigation, a slight deviation in direction can take a project far from its intended goal.
If you're just tuning in, Goal-Task Alignment is the third pillar in our Pillars of Excellence series. Here’s a brief rundown of the series so far:
Off Course: Understanding the Impact of Misaligned Goals and Tasks
Alignment sounds straightforward - I said I am going to do THIS, so I’m going to go do THIS. Simple, right?
Yet, so often we don’t keep it simple. We let distractions divert us from our intended tasks, leading us down paths unrelated to our goals, or worse, into pitfalls (sometimes ones we've dug ourselves)
This misalignment happens way too easily when we aren’t paying attention - like a little east wind setting us of course by 1 or 2 degrees until we’re miles and miles away from where we wanted to be.
Misalignment breezes and winds can look different. Sometimes it’s a lack of clear, actionable goals to begin with. Other times, it’s because there’s just too many daily fires we’re having to deal with - from customers to projects to labor shortages. And we end up not even having the time to think about what we wanted to achieve in the first place. This all leads to drastically missed goals, redundant efforts, and strained team dynamics.
Whatever the breeze, this misalignment happens because a crucial element of operational excellence is missing: Goal-Task Alignment. At its core, goal-task alignment aims to keep us aware of all the distracing winds that can take us off course and help ensure that we are consistently moving toward our goals.
Setting the Course: How Vision Guides Your Daily To-Dos
Figuring out what we should be focusing on every day comes back to our strategic vision and well-defined goals. These are our guiding stars in the sky for our daily operations. By aligning tasks with these long-term goals, every day’s work directly contributes to overarching business success.
Start with High-Level Clarity: What are the goals set by the leadership or executive team? What’s the strategic vision? Clarity at the top will lead to clarity at the bottom. This clarity provides the framework for which all tasks and projects can be evaluated and prioritized.
Further Define Success: Once we’re clear on those executive-level goals, we can develop our KPIs. Too often managers set KPIs that aren’t really attached to any goals and then those numbers ultimately hold no meaning. KPIs should be derived from our goals by saying “We are successful or making appropriate progress on GOAL if X is X”. Here are some examples:
Our project management team is on track for 90% on-time project completion if change orders approval wait times are reduced by 21%.
We are successful in enhancing customer satisfaction if our customer service response time is reduced by 50%.
Setting Sails: Actually Doing The Right Work
Cool - so now you have some goals written down and you’ve got this super fun KPI dashboard with these color graphs…so what does that have to do with what you’ll be doing when you show up to work tomorrow?
Here’s where we are releasing our sails and taking off: translating vision into action.
Once goals are set and we’ve defined what success looks like in these goals, then we can break them down into actionable steps that can be integrated into daily workflows. Let’s see what this would look like for one of our previous goal and KPI examples:
In order for our project management team to get change orders down, they aren’t just going to wish that a customer will approve change orders as soon as they are sent out for signature. They’re going to look for opportunities in estimating, pre-con, or other project checkpoints to communicate with the customer to try to reduce change orders in the first place. They are going to have regular meetings with customers where open items (like waiting on a signature) is on the agenda.
Misalignment winds can look subtle. It might look like customers that are non communicative and just suck at being involved in their build. Accepting that you’ve just got a ‘crappy customer’ is letting that wind blow you off course. A proactive project manager doesn’t just passively accept these conditions. Instead, they actively engage, consistently following up with the customer (within reasonable limits) to secure the necessary signatures and approvals to keep the project on track.
Aligning Stars: Tools and Tactics To Keep You On Course
How do you ensure your daily tasks are not just busy work but strategic steps towards your goals? Here are some techniques and tools:
Assessment Checklist: Does the task at hand have a measurable impact on your goals? Is it the best use of resources at this moment?
Avoiding Pitfalls: One common mistake is overloading the to-do list with tasks that feel urgent but aren’t crucial to your goals. Learn to distinguish between urgency and importance. Focus on tasks that offer the most significant impact towards achieving strategic goals. Try tools like the Eisenhower Box to categorize and prioritize tasks effectively.
Encourage Autonomy: While alignment is crucial, it's equally important to allow teams the freedom to approach tasks in ways that best suit their skills and contexts. When goals and KPIs are clear, we can more easily avoid micromanagement and implement long-leash management styles.
Streamline And Automate: Cutting down on tasks that don’t add value to your goals or provide value to your customers (check our last week’s blog on customer centricity) will naturally improve productivity and profitability. Keep this momentum going by using the right tools and automating trivial tasks. Consider tools like monday.com where you can create those fun dashboards, templatize project processes, and automate tasks.
Realign, Reassess, Reaffirm
Aligning ambition with action starts at the top of an organization but should never stop there. Goal-task alignment should be a pervasive part of company culture to achieve excellence.
Your approach to goals shouldn’t be a set-it-and-forget-it process. Clarity makes sure we’re all on the same page of what we’re trying to achieve. KPIs help us regularly check-in to make sure we’re on course. And our daily to-dos reflect priorities in a way that keeps us working toward excellence.
Feeling inspired to take your operational excellence to the next level? Dive deeper by taking our Business Superhero quiz and see what strengths you bring to your team.
