Have you ever wanted to be able to motivate the people around you? What if you could be a more meaningful contributor at work by inspiring others and finding a way to coordinate individual priorities and goals with the strategic vision of the organization? Does any of this sound intriguing? If so... you want to find out about the innovative business communication strategy that is revealed in this article. Regardless of the amount of experience you hold in the area of business or managerial communication, this article will serve as a valuable add-on to your business effectiveness.nn ~ Alignment with others = Results ~
If you're like most people, it's likely that the only time you think about alignment is when you need to get your car tuned up. While that's not the "alignment" we're talking about here, it does operate on the same principle. In order for your car to function at its best, it's important that your tires are aligned--that they're all moving in the same direction. The same is true for any business relationship; they'll be at their best when everyone is aligned and moving in the same direction toward a desired outcome.
What we're talking about here is not about improving your communication skills or just learning new listening techniques. Effective business communication, or any interaction where people are working together to create a desired outcome, best begins with alignment.
Consider this: in life, start off heading in one direction creating our own paths as we go, while trying to accomplish our individual goals. All the while, we are joined to one another in many ways. As we work alone to achieve our desired results, our interconnections with those around us limits our ability to achieving what we want, in the exact way we want it. If we understand how to create alignment with others--having everyone move in the same direction, attempting to achieve the same results, the whole process of reaching our goals becomes much more likely to happen. Creating alignment most often leads us to greater success and satisfaction.nn ~ Developing Intrinsic Order ~
Be aware of the outcome you want and you will be able to align yourself with others. When you are able to recognize and then express, what's of the greatest importance to you--what do you value most; you are only then able to create alignment with others. The first step in doing this is to identify the underlying values in the outcome you desire. If you want all office personnel to get to a meeting 10 minutes early, stop and examine your motives, when you do, you might find that you place great importance on effectiveness or consideration. Keep in mind that there are always values that make you want a particular outcome in the first place and you must be able to first identify them to be able to express them to others.nn ~ How to have an Alignment Conversation ~
After you have established your own core values, you then help find those that are of importance to the other people on your team. This analysis begins with the expression of the values you have determined as critical in your on working environment. You then question if those elements are meaningful to the other people, and if they are ready to take actions to create that sort of experience. This is the mechanism of coordinating your values- building a common vision. This common vision could sound something like the following: working in a more peaceful, satisfying environment or enhancing productivity and effectiveness. Once a common vision has been established, the next step is to developing policies to meet your set objectives.nnKey points 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 are people if you're working with the group, 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.)nnSome other things to cover in the conversation include:
In order to negotiate strategies that are mutually agreeable, we suggest that everyone agrees to let go of judgments and/or criticisms. All wins will be acknowledged and honored. And all past negative experiences will be left in the past.
Once everyone in your organization agrees upon the desired outcome and shares a common goal you will find that everyone will be working together to achieve the desired results and those results will come quicker and more efficiently.
Cooperation and teamwork become much simple once everyone involved shares a vision of the desired result and then starts working toward that vision. This will increase your group's productivity and make positive results much more likely for everyone on the team.n