What is “vertical alignment?”
When an organization embarks on transformation activities, vertical alignment is a necessary condition. What is vertical alignment? It is the agreement between top-down “wants” and bottom-up “needs.” The primary drivers of success are the organization's ability to work together as a team by first agreeing on the problems to solve. Therefore, it is essential to ensure that the transformation activities are aligned with true needs so that they can be integrated seamlessly into the organization's culture and operations.
What causes the lack of vertical alignment?
This can happen quite easily, unless conscious effort is made to ensure that the top-down wants and the bottom-up needs are considered together. A surprising number of transformation initiatives are driven by factors such as the latest management fad, competitor actions, or the pressure to “do something” to address a problem. As an example, a digital transformation initiative may be triggered by a senior leader in a company to address perceived issues, while staff “on the ground” have a different set of burning needs. This causes a lack of vertical alignment. The mandated initiatives may not be aligned with the organization's “real” needs, leading to resistance, confusion, and ultimately failure.
How to achieve vertical alignment?
To achieve vertical alignment, it is important to ensure that the planned transformation is aligned with both top-down wants and bottom-up needs. This can be done by bringing together key stakeholders early in the planning process and making a deliberate and focused effort to create the alignment. A typical format is a workshop run by a competent guide who can help the stakeholders brainstorm the approach using a carefully curated approach.
What is “horizontal alignment”?
In addition to vertical alignment, it is crucial to also have horizontal alignment across different parts of the organization. Horizontal alignment pertains to the linkage between different functions, teams, and business units within the organization. When horizontal alignment is present, there is a shared understanding of the transformation initiative across the stakeholders of the different parts of the organization.
What causes the lack of horizontal alignment?
Lack of shared understanding of the transformation across different functions, teams, and business units within the organization causes the lack of horizontal alignment. The lack of ownership and transparency or awareness of the transformation activities creates the break in alignment. Transformation activities that lack horizontal alignment can result in a fragmented and disjointed approach and lack of ownership, leading to inefficiencies, waste, and poor implementation.
How to achieve horizontal alignment?
It is important to ensure that all stakeholders are aware of the transformation goals, objectives, and progress, right from the beginning, to facilitate horizontal alignment and avoid inefficiencies and waste. To achieve horizontal alignment, it is essential to create a common understanding of the transformation goals and objectives across the organization. At the beginning of the transformation effort, it is important to bring all the stakeholders together to have an open discussion of the problems that the transformation effort is expected to address, and include the stakeholders in prioritizing actions and planning the effort. Beyond this initial stage, horizontal alignment must be maintained through effective communication, collaboration, and the alignment of incentives and performance metrics.
Conclusion
In summary, vertical and horizontal alignments are both critical for success in any transformation effort. Without vertical alignment, the transformation activities will suffer from lack of buy-in from all stakeholders, leading to resistance and failure. Without horizontal alignment, the transformation activities may not be coordinated and integrated, leading to inefficiencies and waste. Therefore, it is essential to ensure both vertical and horizontal alignments in any transformation effort, and can be achieved through a single, carefully curated workshop at the beginning of the effort.