Strategy Category

Strategic Alignment Framework: 7 steps to align your team on your strategy

StrategyPunk

Oct 22, 2022 — 3 min read

Strategic Alignment Framework - 7 steps to align your team on your strategy

Strategic alignment is underrated in today's business world. People and teams need alignment on the strategy to do their best work. Still, so many companies and leaders need to repeat their strategies. They do it once or twice and think that is how everyone acts from now on.

Here is a framework by Andrew Gazdecki to ensure your team is aligned with your strategy.

Why Align Your Team on Your Strategy?

When you align your team around your strategy, you create a culture of alignment within your organization. Alignment happens when all organization members feel a sense of oneness with the bigger picture. They all clearly understand how their role fits into the strategy that is leading the company.

Why is that important? When everyone on your team understands the strategy, they can align their behaviors to support it. This way, the team members operate with purpose and a clear sense of what success looks like.

When you align your team around the strategy, they are no longer just employees. They are strategic partners. To succeed, they will have to operate with a sense of purpose and be willing to take a lot of ownership for the strategy's success.

Strategic Alignment Framework - 7 steps to align your team on your strategy

There is no better way to align your team around your strategy than by outlining it. Aligning your team with a strategy is different than something that takes time to happen and requires a lot of hard work and a shift in mindset. It takes courage and trust in the team you’ve been entrusted with. That’s why we outline our strategy from start to finish so that everyone understands where we are headed, what are our core values, how we will get there, who are our customers, and most importantly why we need to get there in the first place

7-step strategic alignment framework to ensure your team understands and acts on your strategy. The framework and steps are proper for any organization that wants to build engaged and inspired couples. This can apply to a founder, CEO, department manager, business owner, or any leader responsible for strategic direction, people, and results.

How would you like to align your team on your strategy?

1. Outline your "why"

2. Outline your purpose

3. Outline your mission

4. Outline your customer(s)

5. Outline your culture

6. Outline your vision

7. Outline your north star metric

Finally, Iremind everyone of all of the above as often as possible. A founder, CEO, owner, or any manager must take the lead forever.

💡

Great founders always start with "why" (see also our Simon Sinek's Golden Circle Template).*

What is the importance of strategic alignment?

It is important to keep everyone on the same page. Reminding everyone regularly will help keep them focused and aligned with the company's goals. I'd like you to please review these seven steps to make sure you are going in the right direction and adapt as needed.

Presenting a clear vision is a vitally important leadership skill. With strategic alignment, your team or organization is clear about the future. The future looks much more straightforward with a shared vision and the same understanding. With that clarity, aligning on how to get there is much easier(= strategy).