Rapid Realignment Teaches Leaders How To Adapt And Stay Focused

Spend some quality time with the new book, Rapid Realignment, and you'll learn how to ensure that your strategy, customers, processes and people work seamlessly together in the service of customers and that those four elements continually realign in the face of constant change.

The authors, Dr. George H. Labovitz and Victor Rosansky, share throughout the book a series of case studies from Federal Express, Quest Diagnostics, Navy Hospital at Camp Pendleton, Farmington Savings Bank and a host of other organizations who have stepped up to the challenge of rapid realignment.

Key takeaways from the book include:

• Vertical alignment describes a condition in which every employee can articulate the enterprise's strategy and explain how his or her daily work activities support that strategy.
• Each organization must have a Main Thing.  That Main Thing as a whole must be a common and unifying concept to which every unit can contribute.  Each department and team must be able to see a direct relationship between what it does and this overarching goal.  And, the Main Thing must be clear, easy to understand, consistent with the strategy of the organization, and actionable.
• Growth and profits are surely the ultimate aim of every business organization, but they are outcomes of succeeding with the Main Thing.
• Good bosses understand the value of giving subordinates a long leash.  In addition, best bosses listen, back up their employees, trust and respect their employees and provide feedback to employees.
• Leaders foster engagement when they listen to their employees, create a common purpose, and give people greater ownership of their work.
• Corporate culture is the product of four dynamically related components:  attitudes, beliefs, values, and behavior.
• The fastest and most  effective way to change attitudes and beliefs is to change people's behavior and show them the beneficial results of the new behavior.
• Organizational culture is revealed in artifacts and symbols, the stories people  tell, relationships, and the rituals and rules that guide behavior.

You'll appreciate the Key Points summaries and the Things To Do suggestions from the authors at the end of each of the nine chapters in the book.

And, particularly timely are the book sections where the authors teach readers how to:

• bring the customer voice inside your company through social media
• use social media and digital technology to quickly identify points of misalignment 

Labovitz is the founder and CEO of IDI, an international management training and consulting company, and professor of management and organizational behavior at the Boston University Graduate School of Management.

Rosansky is co-founder and president of LHR International, Inc.  He has more than 25 years of experience as a consultant, helping Fortune 500 clients to drive rapid strategy deployment and alignment.

Thanks to the book publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.