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But what if there was an approach that could give us an advantage over ninety-five per cent of our competition? If such a methodology existed, would you explore and exploit it to benefit your team and organization? If the answer to these questions is yes, then this article could be the beginning of a journey towards long-term success.

How to join the 5% club

Over the past decade, a pattern emerged from our work and research. This pattern pointed clearly to the advantages of aligned understandings of strategy, culture, brand and customer experience.

However, a solid analysis of hundreds of organizations in the last five years has confirmed that a very select few organizations – less than 5% in fact - are aligned strategically, culturally and in their understanding of customer experience and brand.

The negative impact caused by a lack of alignment, and the challenges caused by myths around strategy and culture, were equally stark. It became impossible to ignore the Alignment Advantage, and the methodology has stood up to test after test. It is as robust as it is powerful.

In particular, in international organizations and dispersed teams, the ALIGNED® methodology will do more than create a commercial advantage. It will also revolutionize how they operate. Those who apply the insights will break down silos in their organization. They will unite teams. They will refine what needs to be delivered and the systems, processes and structures to achieve what needs to be achieved.

Perhaps most importantly, leaders who grab the alignment advantage will make their organizations a better place to work – at least for those who really want to contribute to its success – and in turn, you will create clarity about what your customers should experience.

The personal rewards are great too. You will better understand strategy and how to create and execute it than most of your colleagues and competitors.

You will have a clearer understanding of what really drives organizational culture. You will have a framework for changing culture, and you will be able to use your understanding to build teams and organizations that feel connected and collaborative.

You will be able to see through some of the common myths about brand and customer experience in a way that many organizations can’t. If you are in a position to make the changes necessary,

your customers, clients and guests will notice the difference. They will feel differently about your product or service, and you will have the tools to measure their new experience.

By making the most of the Alignment Advantage, you will become part of the 5% Club. It is worth acknowledging that many leaders who explore this methodology assume that their team and organization are already part of the 5% Club and are surprised when they discover this isn’t the case. If this turns out to be the case, you are about to uncover a fantastic opportunity.

Six questions to start the Alignment Advantage

Whether you are sceptical or serious about creating an ALIGNED® organization, the following simple but powerful questions are the starting point. The answers will give a crystal-clear picture of the degree of alignment that exists in your organization.

Ideally, you will pose these questions to all of your organization. However, as a minimum, you should ask the most senior cohort of people you can access.

1 What is strategy?

2 What are your key strategic objectives?

3 What is culture?

4 On a scale of one to six, to what degree does the current culture help you to deliver your strategic objectives?

5 What is the distinction between customer service and customer experience?

6 What is the experience that your organization wants its customers to have?

Primarily you are looking for alignment in the answers to these key questions. If everyone gives the same answers, you are already at an advantage over most other organizations.● However, if there is misalignment among your top team, there is little chance of those at the frontline of your organization being aligned in how they create the experiences you desire for your customers, clients, visitors or guests.

Armed with this data and a clear understanding of how the elements of the Aligned Advantage interact, you can start your journey towards becoming an ALIGNED® organization. You may already be making these connections, but in the spirit of clarity and alignment, here they are:

Strategy and culture

Your culture must be created to be a strategic enabler. This means that the most important influence on your culture is your strategy. If your culture is not created to be a strategic enabler, it will get in the way of the delivery of your strategy.

This is not about whether your culture creates a great or nice place to work, but instead, it’s about driving ‘the way we be around here’ to help to deliver what your business needs to deliver. The first key influence on your culture must be your strategic intent.

Culture and the X

Your customer experience cannot outperform your employee experience. While your culture is an enabler of your strategy, it’s also true that your customer experience cannot outperform your employee experience.

Therefore, your culture must also be shaped in such a way that it helps to deliver the customer, guest, visitor or client experience that you want to create. Your culture will inevitably seep out of your organization and be felt by those who are buying your product or service.

Culture is the pivot in the Alignment Advantage

This is why culture is the pivot in achieving the Alignment Advantage. Culture is both an enabler of the strategy and a creator of the X. As you start to consider these three factors in an aligned way, you will see each driving the next. While all three are likely to be present in some form in your organization, if you are thinking about the alignment of strategy, culture and your X for the first time, there is a clear starting point. You must have clarity in your strategic goals to help you assess

whether your culture is right to deliver your strategy. After this, cultural clarity and alignment around your X tend to emerge concurrently.

It is never too early to start

Teams in organizations from Netflix to Merlin Entertainments and from CBRE to Bally’s have been introduced to our ALIGNED®️ methodology. While all those organizations have different starting points, opportunities and challenges, the reflection from each is that they wished they had taken aligned action earlier.

I recently spoke to the entrepreneur CEO of a £30 million income professional services start-up. He said that his organization was too young and fast-paced to develop a strategy, yet he agreed they took a scattergun approach to business growth and development.

Whether you are a multi-billion-dirham international business or a small disruptor establishing itself in a busy marketplace, it is never too early to grab the Alignment Advantage.

Richard Nugent is the author of The Alignment Advantage (Kogan Page, 2023) and has led programmes and conference sessions across Europe, North America and the GCC region.

He is one of the world’s leading experts on the alignment of organizational strategy and culture. His ALIGNED®️ methodology has revolutionized the way that organizations work and communicate.

Save 20% on The Alignment Advantage with discount code DBBG20 at koganpage.com