Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Innatealliance

Evaluating the digital readiness of the business and making strategic alliances are important to allow room for adjustments and keeping the organization dynamic and informative.


New year is the time to boost energy and rejuvenate passion for unlocking workforce performance Technically, there is no single initiative or the “theme of year” that will suffice to raise the business sensitivity and innovate corporate culture, it takes deliberate planning and dedicated effort for developing high-effective, high-innovative, and high-disciplined workforce. 

Due to fierce competition and rapid changes, it is important to understand that business development is multifaceted and interdisciplinary. In terms of alliance, the management should ask insightful questions to clarify goals and means, make cross-boundary communication & collaboration to amplify change effectively, and enable organizations thriving for the long run.

Does everyone know and understand each other's goals and have agreed on common overall goals via seamless alignment?
The digital workforce is a hyper-connected generation with a multitude of varieties, they have diverse perceptions based on their own life/professional experience, knowledge expertise, culture background, etc. When teaming up, heterogeneous teams are usually more innovative for generating fresh ideas, but it is critical for them to think  empathetically, exchange accurate information, understand each other from mindset to behavior. The communication between team members, or between teams should be improved to harness partnership, demonstrate business value and engage employees for improving collective performance.

Alignment goes beyond conformity and order taking. The smooth alignment is multifaceted, across the organizational hierarchy by enhancing interpersonal communication, value analytics, and governance. First, there is the common agreed strategic goal; from this goal, you determine certain "action items” which become goals for business units. Those business units determine action items from these goals, and these action items become the goals of the teams within each business unit. And so on, until each individual has a goal, with action items and opposing metrics. Only through smooth alignment and process integration, the business strategy can be executed to deliver the high-performance results effectively. Those organizations that have a more mature alignment maturity outperform their competitors and tend to be more responsive to these changes.

Are information and knowledge equally shared among all members with clarity?
Communication clarity makes a direct impact on the business effectiveness and performance. Information accuracy directly impacts communication maturity. A group of high performing individuals is most likely to underachieve if they don't communicate and collaborate smoothly. In many large organizations, there are often different dialects existing in the different departments of the enterprise, misinformation and misinterpretation cause confusion. Information is handled inappropriately; knowledge does not get updated to fit for the new circumstances. People across the company have trouble handling ambiguous or unclear information, and information overload results in the lack of accountability.

Assuming you have the best people in each seat, then what? The real challenge is getting everyone to get the quality information they need to make timely decisions, and also have the compatible set of knowledge to collaborate effectively. Information is overwhelming, and knowledge is outdated sooner than what you thought of. People have learned to no longer apply outdated knowledge in the specific cases, and then, relearn the updated knowledge for gaining insight on the changing circumstance. It’s also important to observe, listen, and collect feedback, to truly improve communication clarity with empathy and clarity, build alliance and unlock performance.

Is there an environment of culture of trust?
Trust takes the breadth and depth of collective cognizance and collaborative effort for building up an innovative working environment and high performance workforce. To develop and maintain trust requires respect, repeat or predictable behavior, dependability, and the fulfillment of promises. All these things take time, but it is worth the effort to harness alliance and collaboration. You can have a team of great players, but there needs to be great attention given to role clarification and the human dynamics of personalities and human behavior, to nurture a culture of trust and improve productivity, innovation and performance.

The true trust is multidimensional; it encompasses trusting self, trusting others, and earning the trust of others. All of which are vital to building, nurturing mutual trust. It's trust that is the key determinant of any collaborative effort; and conversely, the lack of it that can accurately predict the demise of any collaborative effort. To build and maintain trust requires respect, repeat, predictable behavior: dependability, accountability, and the fulfillment of promises. All these things take time, but are necessary to build a strong team, make alignment, and deliver high performance results.

Evaluating the digital readiness of the business and making strategic alliances are important to allow room for adjustments and keeping the organization dynamic and informative. It is possible to achieve the strategic goals timely only if the company has clearly identified and communicated what is in scope, what is the purpose of the change, what the context is, what the company vision, culture and values are, and convince the team to move in that right direction for achieving high performance results.