13 / 204
13
success go far beyond customers - they
include employees, partners, inves-
tors, vendors, and may even include
competitors. Every change requires
an alignment check, and probable rea-
lignment, of some of these forces.
For you as a business person leading
the charge, I recommend the following
principles for managing alignment:
1. Proactively make change
happen, rather than react
You can’t win by always being in recov-
ery mode. With the speed of change
today, you need to develop a culture
that loves change, build the ability to
quickly realign into your organization,
and reward members of the team who
come up with ideas, and are instru-
mental in making them happen.
2. Regularly update and
re-publish your vision and
direction
On a quarterly basis, you need to
re-assess your original vision, to make
sure it is consistent with new realities.
If the world is changing direction, you
need to realign your thinking.
Just as importantly, you have to bring
all constituents along, or the business
will be fragmented and left behind.
3. Review all business
components for every re-
alignment
Too many businesses handle change
on a piecemeal basis - maybe they up-
date the product, but don’t look at the
revenue model, or the selling process.
Nearly half of small businesses to-
day still don’t have a website, despite
a majority of people looking there for
search, sale, and support.
4. Every change requires
extra communication to
constituents
It’s twice as hard to change an im-
age in someone’s mind than it was to
get the image there is the first place.
That means all realignments require