Do you struggle to create and maintain cohesiveness in your business or your place of work? Don't you wish there was a way to bring everyone together and work toward a common goal? Well, there is a way to do all of this and keep a smile on each person's face. One of the most important and little-known business communication practices is alignment. Read on to find out what this is and how it can turbo-charge your workplace productivity.
What is Alignment?
When you think alignment, you may automatically think of how awkward the steering on your vehicle gets when the alignment isn't done regularly. There is another type of alignment which can be applied to verbal interactions with yourself or with other people. The kind of alignment we are referring to here is similar to your vehicle's alignment. In fact, if you don't create alignment regularly in your business interactions, you will find that your communication gets off track, just as the steering does in your car. Communication alignment is when you and the people you're communicating with share a common goal. You do this by digging deep into what each person is saying and finding out what everyone wants out of the experience. By communicating goals and desired outcomes, identifying strategies for achieving those goals becomes much easier.
Alignment creates happy people and extremely effective business communication. In business, we are often encouraged to learn new listening techniques or memorizing scripts to overcome possible objections. Yet, we overlook one of the most important keys to effective communication - creating alignment. Every successful interaction begins with alignment and it is guaranteed to make a significant impact on everyone involved.
To better grasp the concept of alignment, think about how we are all interconnected in life. We each have our own goals and aspirations, and we all go in our own direction in order to achieve these goals. Yet, the interactions we have with others affect (and sometimes limit) how we live our lives. We can be faced with obstacles when we interact with others who are going in a different direction than we are. It is how we choose to communicate with these people that will ultimately guide us back in the direction we want to be going. Applying this concept to business, we can see how creating alignment with others helps promote more beneficial outcomes for everyone involved.
Creating Alignment with Yourself
It is critical to create alignment with yourself before you can begin to create it with others. Once you have identified your desired outcome, and the underlying values associated with it, you will be ready to express it to others. Be sure to dig deep and find those underlying values that support your wants. For instance, perhaps your desired outcome is to have everybody in the group read a memo before a meeting. The underlying value might be effectiveness because you want people to be informed so you don't lose any time getting people up to speed once the meeting is underway. It is important to understand that behind every desired outcome, there are values that make you want that outcome in the first place.
Alignment in Practice: Conversing with Others
Once you discover the values which motivate your desired outcome, you are ready to create alignment with others. Start by sharing your values with the others and ask if they too value those things. Would they be willing to work with you to create that kind of experience? By going through this process, we create a shared vision and align our values. A shared vision might be to increase productivity or produce results more quickly. Once everyone is clear on a shared vision, you are ready to brainstorm strategies that will lead you to the results you all desire.
Important Things to Remember for the Alignment Conversation:
As you start the alignment conversation, it's important to remember to keep it as strategy-free as possible. During this beginning stage, we suggest that you make an agreement with the other person not to try and figure out how to get the specifics of what you want. Once you've agreed upon your shared vision, there will be plenty of time to move on to the specifics of how to reach your goals. It's also wise if you and the other person, or group, agree to avoid spending time talking about the failures of the past. (Bringing up the past can be useful, but only if it is done to understand values that may have been missing back then, not to assign fault or to justify your skepticism.)
Other Keys to Cover in the Conversation:
A willingness to negotiate strategies that are mutually agreeable. A commitment to let go of judgments and/or criticisms. An agreement to celebrate all wins that come from this conversation
Once you are sharing the same vision, you're now working toward the same end result - the big picture of what you all want. This will make it easier to create situations that produce results that everyone will enjoy. When everyone is making agreements from a shared vision, you'll start rolling along down the road to cooperation and teamwork with far fewer bumps than you encountered before - cooperation and teamwork that will increase productivity and will create rewarding results for everyone involved.
What is Alignment?
When you think alignment, you may automatically think of how awkward the steering on your vehicle gets when the alignment isn't done regularly. There is another type of alignment which can be applied to verbal interactions with yourself or with other people. The kind of alignment we are referring to here is similar to your vehicle's alignment. In fact, if you don't create alignment regularly in your business interactions, you will find that your communication gets off track, just as the steering does in your car. Communication alignment is when you and the people you're communicating with share a common goal. You do this by digging deep into what each person is saying and finding out what everyone wants out of the experience. By communicating goals and desired outcomes, identifying strategies for achieving those goals becomes much easier.
Alignment creates happy people and extremely effective business communication. In business, we are often encouraged to learn new listening techniques or memorizing scripts to overcome possible objections. Yet, we overlook one of the most important keys to effective communication - creating alignment. Every successful interaction begins with alignment and it is guaranteed to make a significant impact on everyone involved.
To better grasp the concept of alignment, think about how we are all interconnected in life. We each have our own goals and aspirations, and we all go in our own direction in order to achieve these goals. Yet, the interactions we have with others affect (and sometimes limit) how we live our lives. We can be faced with obstacles when we interact with others who are going in a different direction than we are. It is how we choose to communicate with these people that will ultimately guide us back in the direction we want to be going. Applying this concept to business, we can see how creating alignment with others helps promote more beneficial outcomes for everyone involved.
Creating Alignment with Yourself
It is critical to create alignment with yourself before you can begin to create it with others. Once you have identified your desired outcome, and the underlying values associated with it, you will be ready to express it to others. Be sure to dig deep and find those underlying values that support your wants. For instance, perhaps your desired outcome is to have everybody in the group read a memo before a meeting. The underlying value might be effectiveness because you want people to be informed so you don't lose any time getting people up to speed once the meeting is underway. It is important to understand that behind every desired outcome, there are values that make you want that outcome in the first place.
Alignment in Practice: Conversing with Others
Once you discover the values which motivate your desired outcome, you are ready to create alignment with others. Start by sharing your values with the others and ask if they too value those things. Would they be willing to work with you to create that kind of experience? By going through this process, we create a shared vision and align our values. A shared vision might be to increase productivity or produce results more quickly. Once everyone is clear on a shared vision, you are ready to brainstorm strategies that will lead you to the results you all desire.
Important Things to Remember for the Alignment Conversation:
As you start the alignment conversation, it's important to remember to keep it as strategy-free as possible. During this beginning stage, we suggest that you make an agreement with the other person not to try and figure out how to get the specifics of what you want. Once you've agreed upon your shared vision, there will be plenty of time to move on to the specifics of how to reach your goals. It's also wise if you and the other person, or group, agree to avoid spending time talking about the failures of the past. (Bringing up the past can be useful, but only if it is done to understand values that may have been missing back then, not to assign fault or to justify your skepticism.)
Other Keys to Cover in the Conversation:
A willingness to negotiate strategies that are mutually agreeable. A commitment to let go of judgments and/or criticisms. An agreement to celebrate all wins that come from this conversation
Once you are sharing the same vision, you're now working toward the same end result - the big picture of what you all want. This will make it easier to create situations that produce results that everyone will enjoy. When everyone is making agreements from a shared vision, you'll start rolling along down the road to cooperation and teamwork with far fewer bumps than you encountered before - cooperation and teamwork that will increase productivity and will create rewarding results for everyone involved.
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