#1 Way to Align the Leadership Team’s Strategic Goals to Avoid Silos

Your Strategic Goals are in place. Now what?

How can you ensure that all departments will work together to accomplish these broad goals, rather than each determining their own course of action that may or may not consider the team as a whole?

The #1 way to do this is to establish a Thematic Goal for the organization to which every Department’s Strategic Goal is aligned.

In his book, Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars, Patrick Lencioni describes how using a Thematic Goal will cut across departments and functions and align everyone in the organization to what needs to be done.

The Thematic Goal is one that all groups can rally around independent of where they are in the organization and will therefore lead to greater cohesion and fewer Silos.

Lencioni’s definition of a Thematic Goal is:

“A single, qualitative focus that is shared by the entire Leadership Team, and ultimately, by the entire organization – and that applies for only a specified time period.” – Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars

If the Thematic Goal is to Standardize the Sales and Operating Process, for example, Sales and Operations must work together rather than sub-optimizing within their own departments. And even Quality, Supply Chain, and Accounting must look at their touch points into the Sales and Operating process and try to collaboratively determine what they can do better to make the entire S&OP work better for the organization.

No one group achieve the Thematic Goal alone.

Also, since the Thematic Goal is established with full Leadership Team alignment, every function’s leader will be supportive of activities within that theme.

As for the timeframe for the Thematic Goal, it is likely somewhere between 3-12 months; short enough that specific plans can be made to realize it, and not so long that the team will feel ill equipped to realize it. Even if it is beyond the quarter, however, specific initiatives can be chunked into 90-day timeframes to ensure progress is made to the goal. 

Armed with the Strategic Goals and Thematic Goal, the Leadership Teams can begin the Executagility Model process of Prioritization to determine what tactics are the most likely to accomplish the organization’s aligned goals.

Not sure how to begin? Contact us to get started!