Failure to achieve alignment is the single most frequent cause of not realizing business impact from strategic initiatives. Alignment, both within the initiative team and across the organization, is crucial.
Driving alignment starts with a thorough understanding of the Intent behind the initiative. Once Intent is established and understood, agreement is needed that this is the right strategy to execute at this time. Without that agreement, teams will never be united in execution of the strategy. Once agreement is reached, teams must uncover and deal with both intended and unintended implications of the strategy. Then, and only then, can teams fully commit to themselves and to each other, and put their full energies behind the strategy.
At RWD, we recommend and use focused Intent Workshops to drive alignment. Intent Workshops are a rapid, focused mechanism to expose and close areas of misalignment.