Organization Anchors: The First Step to Achieving Team Alignment
One of the most common issues I observe within organizations is a lack of alignment among team members. There are many ways to create better alignment, but I argue that the first step in achieving alignment is to define, share, and institutionalize organization anchors.
Organization Anchors Explained
I define organization anchors as your mission, vision, values, and positioning. As an English major, I love a good analogy. Think about a boat. The anchor keeps the boat in place; it keeps it from drifting off to sea. The anchor can be lifted so that the boat can travel around from port to port, but it is always part of the boat. The boat, of course, is your organization, and the crew members are your team members. Without an anchor, the boat would be adrift.
Walt Brown, a consultant in the Triangle area recently published a book called The Patient Organization (I highly recommend it). In this book, he says:
“An organization is essentially a fiction that is given meaning and power by those who believe in it.”
Think about that for a moment. An organization is essentially a fiction. It doesn’t exist unless team members believe in it and will it into existence. Another related quote that I love is from Simon Sinek’s incredibly popular Ted Talk about inspirational leadership where he says:
“People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”
We all get immersed in our day-to-day lives—responding to the next email, going to meeting after meeting, creating new business proposals, all while managing our busy personal lives—that we don’t stop to articulate and share what our organization does, and more importantly why our organization exists at all, and where we see our organization going in the future.
Let’s define what mission, vision, values, and positioning mean:
Mission:
Your organization’s core focus or purpose…your organization’s “why”. This should be a short statement that your team members can remember.
Vision:
Where your organization is going, or where you would be today in a perfect world. Like the mission, this should be a short statement.
Values:
Core characteristics shared across an organization that allow it to deliver on its mission and accomplish its vision. Values are typically a word or phrase. Beliefs are short sentences that explain how an organization defines and lives out its values. For example, two organizations may have the same value of “creativity”, but the way they define and live out this value is going to be vastly different.
Positioning:
What your organization does and how it stands out. There is a framework for succinctly defining this—see the example below.
Organization Anchors Benefits
I’m sure some readers are thinking: But I do have a mission or vision statement written down…somewhere. I’ve noticed that these statements all too often are written just to check off a box when you start your organization, and then they’re hidden in a dusty drawer or at the back of a company handbook. They don’t do the work you need them to do: Energize your team, inspire belief in your organization, and align all team members.
When organization anchors are documented and shared throughout your organization, the organization is more aligned across team members as well as more effective and efficient. These statements become much more than words on a page; instead, they are ingrained in every team member.
Also, I’m sure a few readers are thinking: These organization anchors sound like branding. This is absolutely correct; organization anchors form the foundation of branding. Once your organization anchors are set, you can establish the other elements of your brand: personality and voice, logo, typography, colors, etc. But you can’t build a successful brand without having these organization anchors established first.
Organization Anchors Example
See below for Stabilimenta’s organization anchors (and read the organization anchor case study for NC State’s Office of Research and Innovation):
Mission:
To help organizations become more efficient and effective with their operations so that the quality of their operations matches the quality of their work.
Vision:
We envision that all organizations can achieve stability, efficiency, and growth.
Values & Beliefs:
No Nonsense, No Drama | We believe in getting things done efficiently and logically without the drama.
Flexible Determination | We believe that giving up is unacceptable, but we know that we have to be open to different ways of thinking or alternative paths to achieving a goal.
The Worst Thing You Can Do Is Lie (AKA…Always Have Integrity) | We believe that honesty is the key to all relationships, and we will always tell the truth to our clients…and ourselves.
Positioning
How to Create (or Refine) Your Organization Anchors
Step 1: Gather Perspectives
It’s important to gain a holistic perspective of your organization to create your anchors. You should talk to your customers/clients and any partners you closely work with (think: your network of freelancers or vendors). You can conduct short surveys and/or quick phone interviews. Ask the following questions:
What does our organization do well?
What could our organization do even better?
What words would you use to describe our organization?
While your organization anchors should very much come from inside the organization, you also don’t want to create them inside a silo where you are unaware of the current perception of your organization. I promise you that the quickest way to fail is to pretend to be something you’re not. You will be a much more successful organization if you truly embrace what makes you unique rather than try to be like the organization down the road or across town.
In addition to talking to partners and clients, you also should do a reconnaissance of your current digital platforms (website, social media, and review sites like Glassdoor) to evaluate how you are currently talking about yourself and what others are saying about you.
Step 2: Involve Your Team
Explain what organization anchors are to your team, and involve the team in creating the anchors for your organization. Ask the following questions:
What personality traits do people need to work at your organization?
When others ask what you do for a living, what do you tell them? (Imagine you are at a child’s career day or talking to a family member at a reunion).
Who is your audience? What are you trying to help them do or achieve?
What makes your organization stand out?
What is your organization’s biggest strength (or what are you most proud of)?
What is the biggest challenge that your organization is facing (or what keeps you up at night)?
What do you hope you’ll be able to say about your organization next year at this time?
Bonus question: What do you hope you’ll be able to say about your organization in 10 years?
A survey always works well to get everyone’s anonymous perspective. In addition, if you have a smaller company, talking with team members in one-on-one sessions is a great idea. If you have a larger company, you can hold a workshop with key representatives from each division of your company. Have all participants write down their answers on sticky notes and then discuss.
Step 3: Synthesize & Share
Once you’ve completed steps one and two, it’s a matter of synthesizing all of the great data you’ve pulled together, identifying themes, and creating your organization anchors.
Next, share your findings and key themes followed by the organization anchors with your team. Since you’ve involved all team members in the process, you will likely have buy-in from most team members. Still, you want to discuss and make any revisions to your anchors. Making sure you get all of the wording right is incredibly important.
Finally, remember, it’s okay to change your organization anchors. Every once in a while, an anchor on a boat may need to be repaired or part of the anchor’s chain may need to be replaced.
How to Institutionalize Organization Anchors
The experience of creating or refining your organization anchors and involving all team members inherently creates alignment within your team. But you don’t want to lose this momentum that you have built, or lose sight of the organization anchors. So my advice to you: Do NOT hide them in a drawer, or bury them at the back of your company handbook. Instead:
1. Use anchors to make decisions and set goals.
Think of your anchors when you are making decisions on behalf of the organization. Does a new business prospect align with your anchors? If not, perhaps you should consider not going after the bid or working on a proposal.
When you are setting company goals, make sure you can answer the question: How does this goal tie to my organization anchors? If you can’t answer that question, you should revise your goal. Going back to the boat analogy, think of goals as the compass that provides direction on where the boat should go so the boat isn’t meandering from port to port.
2. Review and discuss as a team on at least a quarterly basis.
There are lots of ways to incorporate organization anchors into your office space—printing them out for all team members, creatively adding to the office décor—but most importantly, you want to revisit and discuss these as a group at team meetings. And remember that it’s okay to adjust the anchors, as needed.
3. Include in recruiting processes and new team member onboarding.
Include the anchors as part of your interview process when you’re recruiting new talent. Ask candidates how they would define some of your values. Do they have the same beliefs as you? See my blog post, How to Ace the Interview Process: A Hiring Manager’s Perspective, for more tips on interviewing candidates.
Include the anchors as part of your onboarding process for new team members. Make sure they understand the organization anchors and can start living them on their first day. See my blog post, 6 Ideas for Successful Onboarding, for more onboarding advice.
4. Include in team members reviews, and call out team members who exemplify the anchors.
For annual reviews, incorporate questions, such as: In what ways have you worked to accomplish the mission and vision of the organization in the past year? How have you exemplified the values?
When you see team members living the values, be sure to call them out in front of other team members or reward their behavior.
5. Update all digital platforms and marketing materials.
Once you have your organization anchors and have rolled them out internally, you also should implement your organization anchors externally, as appropriate. For example, update the relevant parts of your website, social media accounts, and marketing/sales materials.
Conclusion
Certainly, there are many more processes that ensure your team is in alignment: annual goal setting for your organization and quarterly reviews, role descriptions and organization structures so everyone in the organization company understands their place within the organization, ongoing one-on-one meetings and annual reviews with team members, etc. However, starting with creating or refining your organization anchors is the first step to getting your team on the same page and moving your boat in the same direction.
Do you have any questions about organization anchors? Do you want help to create or refine your organization anchors? Feel free to contact me.