Align Your Organization And Run At Peak Performance

Organizations must continually search for ways to make the whole more valuable than the sum of its parts. This is especially true in a challenging business environment where every dollar counts. This article provides information about how you can align your organization with evaluations. Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

Alignment is critical if enterprises are to achieve synergies throughout their business and support units. However, too often there is a lack of unity and alignment. A company's vision and strategy are formed by a small group at the top but managers and workers on the front line don't know what they need to do differently. As a result, the change effort fails.

Evaluations help your organization align its managers and people to better achieve big picture strategy.

They give you the facts to help you:
- Respond to change
- Prioritize essential initiatives
- Identify critical disconnects
- Surface key developmental needs

Developing the skills and the methods used by managers has a tremendous impact on an organization's productivity. Poor management and lack of leadership can hinder your organization's ability to reach its goals. A recent Gallup survey of more than 1 million employees found that the most prevalent cause for people leaving is their immediate supervisor and that poorly managed workgroups are an average 50 per cent less productive and 44 per cent less profitable than well-managed groups. A powerful initiative for effecting managers is a 360 degree evaluation system.

Evaluations can be used to improve poor management practices and leadership development at any point in the employee lifecycle. By keeping a record of your employees' talents, skills and preferences, you will be able to develop and manage their career plans and align them with organizational strategy. Evaluations will also help you effectively manage, motivate and retain your talent.

With objective, quantifiable data about individual employees, you can make the best possible employee development and training decisions. By identifying employees who need improvement, the areas in which they need further development and the progress they have made toward improving the necessary skills, you can set your organization up for future success. Management training works in three parts:

First, is an extensive 360 degree evaluation that is used to provide managers with multi-rater feedback from those who observe their performance: their bosses, subordinates, and peers. This is an important process because increased awareness motivates managers to change the way they do their jobs.

The second part is an analysis that alerts top management to potential managerial problems that can develop when managers' goals are not in alignment with the goals of the organization. Having this information encourages leadership development on an individual level as well as across the enterprise. This information will also strengthens communication and builds stronger organizations.

The third is an organized management and leadership development program that addresses specific leadership skills identified in the survey as requiring improvement, enabling managers to pursue self-improvement in the areas most essential to improving their job performance. Consisting of 18 modules, managers create and complete a customized leadership development plan using modules. Unlike many courses and seminars, management training activities are integrated into a manager's daily tasks.