Today we are gazing at the North Star of alignment.
Consider an orchestra that has put everything in place to play Handel’s Messiah better than any orchestra in history but is booked as the opener for Justin Bieber’s 6-month concert tour. The performances may be exceptional, but the music does not fill any need or gap for the pop music focused audience – they simply aren’t interested. The players in the orchestra and their support organization can double-down, work overtime, create amazing advertising and guarantee a flawless performance, but they will still fail their audience, and not deliver on their organization’s goals and vision.
This does happen in the real world. Too much internal focus and not adapting to a rapidly changing environment can quickly lead to losing touch with your customer’s needs.
It’s good practice to consider models like Galbraith’s Star Model (The
Star Model TM – Jay Galbraith) to help us align all elements of the
business. On first look, the model appears to be all about the internal workings of the organization – structure, process, rewards, people, and strategy.
However, strategy is at the top for a reason. It sets the direction, and that direction needs to look externally and point to a gap, or a need in the market. If it doesn’t the company will be like the lost orchestra, aligned in the wrong direction. Equally important to note is that those customer needs are constantly
changing, so continuous review and adapting is required to ensure that the
North Star of Strategy is always pointing to a clear gap in the market that the
company can fill.
Here are 5 things you can do to understand your customer better and keep your strategy relevant:
1. Spend time with your customers – yes, this includes Executives and as many people in the organization as possible.
2. Survey your customers to find out what’s important to them.
3. Focus groups and interviews to find out the details behind what’s important to your customers and how they are feeling.
4. Use agile product development that does quick, inexpensive development iterations so customer input happens quickly and continuously.
5. Develop a customer journey that impresses your customers and includes feedback loops so you are always in contact.
No organization is perfect, so some misalignment is acceptable, but misalignment to the Northern Star, your customer, is a quick way to failure. Sometimes gazing at the stars outside your organization is the best use of your time.
Click here to find out how to keep your Strategy pointed to True North with Sage & Summit’s Infinite StrategyTM
More
articles on other elements of Alignment: https://sage-summit.ca/leading-culture-change/
