The main thing

Driving down the road, the steering wheel of our Toyota Corolla started to shake. The car was in need of a wheel alignment, and we knew that the longer we let it go, the worse it would eventually get.

Like cars, organizations out of alignment can develop serious problems. Over time, a business will become difficult to steer and it won’t respond well to a change in direction. Unfortunately, aligning an organization is not as simple as getting some tools out and tightening a few loose nuts. It requires looking at your corporate culture, the processes you have in place, the customers you serve, your strategy, and your people. These various elements work together to generate focus and commitment within the organization to achieve a central aim, or what George Labovitz and Victor Rosansky call “the main thing” in their groundbreaking book, The Power of Alignment: How Great Companies Stay Centered and Accomplish Extraordinary Things.

We have worked with numerous companies, and it is easy to spot the symptoms of an ailing organization that is out of alignment. It will typically have high turnover, low morale, and the various departments are involved in turf warfare. Processes are inefficient, and there is a chronic inability to improve. All of this leads to a stagnant or declining market share and marginal profits. The bottom line is that these misaligned companies are not fun places for employees to work or for customers to spend their money.

To align your organization, you should start by asking yourself: “What is our main thing?” In other words, what is the one thing your organization does – or should be doing – to distinguish itself from the competition and produce greater growth and profits? Labovitz and Rosansky have worked with Federal Express for more than ten years, and they said that CEO, Fred Smith, described the concept of the main thing as his “theory of business.”

Smith says: “Every successful business has, at its heart, a theory of the business – an underlying set of supporting objectives and a corporate philosophy that gives people a foundation on which to operate. Working inside that framework, they’ve got an idea of what we want them to do – to prioritize. We [at FedEx] have a very clear business mission and a business theory which is understood certainly by every member of the management team, and probably by 90 percent of the workforce.”

The main thing for Smith at FedEx is absolutely reliable express delivery. This is the unifying concept around which everyone is expected to contribute. Measures and reports are used to provide feedback to determine if the company is achieving the main thing on a regular and consistent basis.

Identifying your main thing is critical prior to developing your strategic plan because it will determine the direction of the company. The main thing must be centered on what your customers want and need because they will be the ones you must ultimately serve and fulfill.

The main thing should provide a benefit to your customers that they won’t get from the competition. Levi Strauss was a hit with gold prospectors in the 1870s because their jeans were reinforced with a patented copper rivet, which made the clothing more durable. Levis became the standard for toughness in men’s work clothing. Can you simply state your unique advantage in a few sentences?

Start by identifying some activities where your organization has the potential to excel. Corporations such as FedEx, McDonald’s, and Amazon.com recognize what they do best and have built their strategies around their main thing. Often, a company’s unique advantage is right in front of their face, but it takes a leader with vision to recognize the main thing and get others to buy into that vision. Even though Maurice and Richard McDonald ran a successful burger restaurant, it took a milkshake mixer salesman named Ray Kroc to recognize their expertise in how they delivered fast food and its potential for franchising.

A quick test to determine if your organization is aligned and centered on the main thing is to ask your employees these three questions posed by Labovitz and Rosansky: “What is the strategy of this organization?” “What do you do?” and “How does what you do support the strategy?”

Employees want to see the meaning in their work to the larger purpose of the organization; however, most do not have a clue what the strategy is and how their job connects with it. They want to know that what they do contributes to the main thing. They want to know that there is real leadership they can trust to direct the organization. The reality, though, is that few see this connection and therefore their main thing is a lame thing, causing the organization to be out of alignment and difficult to steer to greater growth and profits.

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They have consulted with over 400 businesses in 40 different industries. For better business results go to BizResults.biz to read previous articles.)