Organizational Alignment Quotes

there cannot be alignment deeper in the organization, even when employees want to cooperate, if the leaders at the top aren’t in lockstep with one another

Authentic leaders inspire us to engage with each other in powerful dreams that make the impossible possible. We are called on to persevere despite failure and pursue a purpose beyond the paycheck. This is at the core of innovation. It requires aligning the dreams of each individual to the broader dream of the organization.

To align message with market is simply to communicate a message that resonates with your market.

Research confirms what we intuitively know: aligned, innovative, and integrated HR practices make a dramatic difference in individual and organizational performance.

term Lean was coined by John Krafcik in a 1988 article based on his master’s thesis at MIT Sloan School of Management1 and then popularized in The Machine that Changed the World and Lean Thinking. Lean Thinking summarized Womack and Jones’s findings from studying how Toyota operates, an approach that was spearheaded by Taiichi Ohno, codified by Shigeo Shingo, and strongly influenced by the work of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Henry Ford, and U.S. grocery stores. Lean Thinking framed Toyota’s

People are typically more comfortable talking with others in their own environment; being asked to come to a conference room to help a leadership-heavy team evaluate work flow can evoke understandable anxiety and make them feel like they are on a witness stand. It is much more effective to go to them.

As the idea of culture has migrated from anthropology to organizational theory, so it has become highly instrumentalized and reified. It is another example of the hubris of managerialism, which claims to be able to analyse, predict and control the intangible, and with the result that it can bring about the opposite of what it intends. In other words, with the intention of ensuring that employees are more committed to their work and are more productive, repeated culture change programmes can have the effect of inducing cynicism or resistance in staff (McKinlay and Taylor, 1996). With an insistence that staff align their values with those of the organization, what may result is gaming strategies on the part of staff to cover over what they really think and feel (Jackall, 2009).

the purpose of value stream mapping is to design a strategic improvement plan that will be executed over a period of time; it’s not designed to address problems at a detailed level.

The purpose of value stream mapping is to make strategic decisions about the future state.

In most cases, the kaizen bursts should describe the improvement generally (what), not specifically (how). Remember, value stream mapping is a strategic leadership activity that is part of a macro PDSA cycle. Designing and making specific improvements requires a series of micro PDSA cycles and heavy involvement from the front lines. You want those closest to the work designing tactical-level improvements rather than leaders who are too far from the work to determine exactly what should be done to reach a target condition.

A common behavior is to feel compelled to start improving the value stream at the micro level and focus on reducing process time. However, an interesting phenomenon occurs when teams maintain a macro perspective: process time reductions become a by-product of addressing the IT systems and barriers to flow at a macro level. The facilitator may frequently need to redirect the team to help them stay focused on the macro and eliminate the easy-to-see waste within the value stream. Going into the weeds (process-level analysis) comes later as you execute the transformation plan and define and document standard work via smaller PDSA cycles.

Companies that have the greatest success with sustained Lean transformation make an up-front commitment that eliminating work won’t result in eliminating people. It’s the work that’s non-value-adding, not the people.

If you use freed capacity to lay off staff, it’s a sign of disrespect. You can be assured that employee interest in further improvement activities will plummet and you will be unable to experience successful value stream improvement efforts in the future.

In those rare circumstances where layoffs are the only way for a business to survive (e.g., extreme market conditions), the organization should perform the reduction in force before embarking on a transformation journey that relies on creating a safe environment for the workforce to make innovative decisions.

it’s critical that an organization approach the freed capacity that is realized through process time reductions in a way that enables growth rather than viewing it as a labor reduction exercise that leads to layoffs.

Every value stream needs two to five key performance indicators (KPIs) that are tracked on a regular basis.

No matter how urgently improvement is needed, how skilled the facilitator is, or how well-intentioned the mapping team is, it’s unrealistic to expect work systems that have existed for years or even decades to be completely transformed in a matter of months. Any consultant who tells you that it’s likely, or even possible, should be shown the door. Change takes time.

We have observed that, when you ask people to describe a specific process in a value stream, there are at least four different versions: how managers believe it operates, how it’s supposed to operate (i.e., the written procedure, if one exists), how it really operates, and how it could operate.

Embracing value stream thinking is a mark of an organization that has successfully shifted from siloed thinking (what’s best for me and my team?) to holistic thinking (what’s best for the customer and the company?).

book Buy-In, Harvard Business School professor John Kotter explains the importance of gaining others’ support in order to create real institutional change: Buy-in is critical to making any large organizational change happen. Unless you win support for your ideas, from people at all levels of your organization, big ideas never seem to take hold or have the impact you want. Our research has shown that 70 percent of all organizational change efforts fail, and one reason for this is executives simply don’t get enough buy-in, from enough people, for their initiatives and ideas.

Another way to look at the business case is from a sales headcount perspective. What will deliver more return on investment: another quota-carrying salesperson or using that money to drive an initiative? These are the kinds of open and transparent conversations you want to have when discussing the business case. Make the ROI clear, and communicate it to all stakeholders. There is no reason to be shy about the business impact you expect to see. That is the ultimate tool to gain organizational buy-in for your top sales initiatives.

What to Do with Freed Capacity Freeing capacity is a vital way for labor-intensive organizations to increase the proportion of revenue to labor. The effort, though, should not result in layoffs. Rather, freeing capacity enables an organization to accomplish one or more of the following outcomes: Absorb additional work without increasing staff Reduce paid overtime Reduce temporary or contract staffing In-source work that’s currently outsourced Create better work/life balance by reducing hours worked Slow down and think Slow down and perform higher-quality work with less stress and higher safety Innovate; create new revenue streams Conduct continuous improvement activities Get to know your customers better (What do they really value?) Build stronger supplier relationships Coach staff to improve their critical thinking and problem-solving skills Mentor staff to create career growth opportunities Provide cross-training to create greater organizational flexibility and enhance job satisfaction Do the things you haven’t been able to get to; get caught up Build stronger interdepartmental and interdivisional relationships to improve collaboration Reduce payroll through natural attrition

If there are no metrics in place, how can you know how well the value stream is performing, let alone if it is getting better or worse?

Establishing KPIs that are actively managed is a fundamental requirement for achieving operational excellence. The key phrase is “actively managed.

you might have to counter leaders’ objections to defining such a narrow scope for the current state map. But once you get through the future state design process, everyone will see that this is a highly effective approach to accomplishing the mission at hand.

In many cases, simply getting the basics in place across an entire value stream—standardizing the work, building in quality at the source, and installing visual management—can yield significant results,

key Lean maxim that should guide your mapping team’s every step is “maximum results through minimum effort.

Engagement and Organizational Efficiency Engagement of individuals without relevant collective alignment is bound to fail. Engagement has to be directed towards a common vision and direction. In the Global Workforce Study, Towers Watson (2012) showed that highly engaged employees have: Lower “presenteeism” or lost productivity at work: 7.6 days lost each year, against 14.1 days for disengaged employees Less absenteeism: 3.2 days each year, against 4.2 days for disengaged employees Less likelihood to leave than their disengaged colleagues: only 18% of highly engaged are ready to leave their employer in the next two years compared

The core development that makes new organization alignments successful is a change in organizational thinking that results in behavior change.

To deepen alignment across specialties, the Apple organizational structure was very different from that of most other firms. There were no product divisions that were their own profit centers. “We run one P&L for the company,” said operations head Tim Cook (who became CEO after Jobs’s death).8 Thus, divisions did not compete against each other for customers or worry about "cannibalization.” This proved a huge competitive advantage when Apple introduced the iPod and iTunes. Rival Sony, rich in assets that could have given Apple a run for its money, was undermined by their organization structure, which was divided into profit centers that drove focus on product lines but hampered collaboration across these lines. Sony’s music division and their consumer electronics division were never able to successfully join forces to compete against Apple. Conversely, at Apple, all departments could celebrate a sale, whether a consumer chose to download music through their iPod or iPhone, or send emails using an iPad or MacBook.

The more people are involved in alignment deliberations, the more likely the effort will result in substantial organizational and behavioral change, and thus improvements to the bottom line. Organization alignment discussions are where change management begins, not several days or weeks later when a beautifully packaged presentation is pitched to the enterprise. It is best to broaden alignment participation as much as you can, and then work to replicate the experience for other enterprise members in a cascade down through the organization.

Principles are like guidelines that help you test whether your actions are aligned with your beliefs and values, or not. If not, you have to search for another way to solve

The basic feature in the present-day- strategic human resource consultancy in devising the right processes with HR digital practices, for an organization routing organizational performance towards accomplishing organizational goals, both - long-term goals and short-term goals, aligned with the organization’s vision and mission.

Learning Plan Template Before Entry Find out whatever you can about the organization’s strategy, structure, performance, and people. Look for external assessments of the performance of the organization. You will learn how knowledgeable, fairly unbiased people view it. If you are a manager at a lower level, talk to people who deal with your new group as suppliers or customers. Find external observers who know the organization well, including former employees, recent retirees, and people who have transacted business with the organization. Ask these people open-ended questions about history, politics, and culture. Talk with your predecessor if possible. Talk to your new boss. As you begin to learn about the organization, write down your first impressions and eventually some hypotheses. Compile an initial set of questions to guide your structured inquiry after you arrive. Soon After Entry Review detailed operating plans, performance data, and personnel data. Meet one-on-one with your direct reports and ask them the questions you compiled. You will learn about convergent and divergent views and about your reports as people. Assess how things are going at key interfaces. You will hear how salespeople, purchasing agents, customer service representatives, and others perceive your organization’s dealings with external constituencies. You will also learn about problems they see that others do not. Test strategic alignment from the top down. Ask people at the top what the company’s vision and strategy are. Then see how far down into the organizational hierarchy those beliefs penetrate. You will learn how well the previous leader drove vision and strategy down through the organization. Test awareness of challenges and opportunities from the bottom up. Start by asking frontline people how they view the company’s challenges and opportunities. Then work your way up. You will learn how well the people at the top check the pulse of the organization. Update your questions and hypotheses. Meet with your boss to discuss your hypotheses and findings. By the End of the First Month Gather your team to feed back to them your preliminary findings. You will elicit confirmation and challenges of your assessments and will learn more about the group and its dynamics. Now analyze key interfaces from the outside in. You will learn how people on the outside (suppliers, customers, distributors, and others) perceive your organization and its strengths and weaknesses. Analyze a couple of key processes. Convene representatives of the responsible groups to map out and evaluate the processes you selected. You will learn about productivity, quality, and reliability. Meet with key integrators. You will learn how things work at interfaces among functional areas. What problems do they perceive that others do not? Seek out the natural historians. They can fill you in on the history, culture, and politics of the organization, and they are also potential allies and influencers. Update your questions and hypotheses. Meet with your boss again to discuss your observations.

The exercise of distilling complex work systems to their most essential and macro-level components builds critical thinking skills and creates a more manageable means for designing improvements to an entire system

About the Bacharach Leadership Group: Training for Pragmatic Leadership™ “Vision without execution is hallucination.”—Thomas Edison The litmus test of pragmatic leadership is results. The Bacharach Leadership Group (BLG) focuses on the skills necessary to lead and move agendas. Whether in corporations, nonprofits, universities, or entrepreneurial start-ups, BLG instructors train leaders in the core competencies necessary to execute change and innovation. At all levels of the organization, leaders must master ideation skills for innovation, political skills for moving change, negotiation skills for building support, coaching skills for engagement, and team leadership skills for going the distance. The BLG approach: 1. ASSESSMENT BLG will assess your organizational challenges and leadership needs. 2. ALIGNMENT BLG will align its training solutions with your organization’s challenges and culture. 3. TRAINING BLG training includes options for mixed-modality delivery, interactive activities, and collaboration with an emphasis on application. 4. OWNERSHIP BLG provides continuous follow-up, access to the exclusive BLG mobile apps library, and coaching. Whether delivering a complete leadership academy or a specific program or workshop, BLG will partner with you to get the results you need. To keep up to date with the BLG perspective, visit blg-lead.com or contact us at info@blg-lead.com.

Displaying vision and mission statements prominently in the school environment can shape organizational culture and align stakeholders toward a common vision.

Lasting habits can only be created when a person’s internal and external environments are aligned.

Once a leadership team has become cohesive and worked to establish clarity and alignment around the answers to the six critical questions, then, and only then, can they effectively move on to the next step: communicating those answers. Or better yet, overcommunicating those answers—over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

The ability to visualize non-visible work is an essential first step in gaining clarity about and consensus around how work gets done.

Great service organizations tend to do three things well in their relationship with culture. They have deep clarity about the organizational culture they must cultivate in order to compete and win. They are effective in signaling the norms and values that embody that culture. And they work hard to ensure cultural consistency, alignment between the desired culture and organizational strategy, structure, and operations.

Goethe asserted, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Jack Welch of GE introduced many to his description of four types of employees based on their contribution to organizational goals and their alignment to corporate values:12 Delivers on commitments/shares our values—upward and onward Misses commitments/shares our values—second chance Does not meet commitments/does not share our values—out Delivers on commitments/does not share our values—this call demands managerial courage and for Welch, that answer is out!

The Bible reminds us that a little leaven leavens the whole loaf of bread. If one insists on maintaining a competitive spirit in the face of the above behaviors, it may be a strong indicator of a lack of value alignment. Such individuals may need to find an organization that is more in tune with their approach to organizational life.

MODEL 2: Multiple Stakeholder Sustainability, Fons Trompenaars and Peter Woolliams (2010) PROBLEM STATEMENT How can I assess the most significant organizational dilemmas resulting from conflicting stakeholder demands and also assess organizational priorities to create sustainable performance? ESSENCE Organizational sustainability is not limited to the fashionable environmental factors such as emissions, green energy, saving scarce resources, corporate social responsibility, and so on. The future strength of an organization depends on the way leadership and management deal with the tensions between the five major entities facing any organization: efficiency of business processes, people, clients, shareholders and society. The manner in which these tensions are addressed and resolved determines the future strength and opportunities of an organization. This model proposes that sustainability can be defined as the degree to which an organization is capable of creating long-term wealth by reconciling its most important (‘golden’) dilemmas, created between these five components. From this, professors and consultants Fons Trompenaars and Peter Woolliams have identified ten dimensions consisting of dilemmas formed from these five components, because each one competes with the other four. HOW TO USE THE MODEL: The authors have developed a sustainability scan to use when making a diagnosis. This scan reveals: The major dilemmas and how people perceive the organization’s position in relation to these dilemmas; The corporate culture of an organization and their openness to the reconciliation of the major dilemmas; The competence of its leadership to reconcile these dilemmas. After the diagnosis, the organization can move on to reconciling the major dilemmas that lead to sustainable performance. To this end, the authors developed a dilemma reconciliation process. RESULTS To achieve sustainable success, organizations need to integrate the competing demands of their key stakeholders: operational processes, employees, clients, shareholders and society. By diagnosing and connecting different viewpoints and values, their research and consulting practice results in a better understanding of: The key challenges the organization faces with its various stakeholders and how to prioritize them; The extent to which leadership and management are capable of addressing the organizational dilemmas; The personal values of employees and their alignment with organizational values. These results help an organization define a corporate strategy in which crucial dilemmas are reconciled, and ensure that the company’s leadership is capable of executing the strategy sustainably. It does so while specifically addressing the company’s wealth-creating processes before the results show up in financial reports. It attempts to anticipate what the corporate financial performance will be some six months to three years in the future, as the financial effects of dilemma reconciliation are budgeted.

Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: 1) personal (my relationship with myself); 2) interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others); 3) managerial (my responsibility to get a job done with others); and 4) organizational (my need to organize people—to recruit them, train them, compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned structure, strategy, and systems). Each level is “necessary but insufficient,” meaning

LEADERSHIP ABILITIES Some competencies are relevant (though not sufficient) when evaluating senior manager candidates. While each job and organization is different, the best leaders have, in some measure, eight abilities. 1 STRATEGIC ORIENTATION The capacity to engage in broad, complex analytical and conceptual thinking 2 MARKET INSIGHT A strong understanding of the market and how it affects the business 3 RESULTS ORIENTATION A commitment to demonstrably improving key business metrics 4 CUSTOMER IMPACT A passion for serving the customer 5 COLLABORATION AND INFLUENCE An ability to work effectively with peers or partners, including those not in the line of command 6 ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT A drive to improve the company by attracting and developing top talent 7 TEAM LEADERSHIP Success in focusing, aligning, and building effective groups 8 CHANGE LEADERSHIP The capacity to transform and align an organization around a new goal You should assess these abilities through interviews and reference checks, in the same way you would evaluate potential, aiming to confirm that the candidate has displayed them in the past, under similar circumstances.

As Deming is commonly reported to have said, “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.

Principle-centered leadership is practiced from the inside out on four levels: 1) personal (my relationship with myself); 2) interpersonal (my relationships and interactions with others); 3) managerial (my responsibility to get a job done with others); and 4) organizational (my need to organize people—to recruit them, train them, compensate them, build teams, solve problems, and create aligned structure, strategy, and systems).

Alignment within and between the systems is lost. We find ourselves working harder than ever, yet we benefit less and less from our efforts. As tension mounts, we look for someone to blame. The real problem, however, is embedded in the underlying organizational systems that have shifted out of alignment-with each other and sometimes with the external environment. When an organization discovers that its systems need realignment, I am often asked to make a diagnosis. Senior executives seldom argue with my diagnosis, but they almost always argue with my recommendations. I am told, "What you don't understand is that we don't have the time to make the deep change you are recommending." This statement is accurate.

Controls are the mechanisms that you use to align with other leaders you work with, and they can range from defining metrics to sprint planning (although I wouldn’t recommend the latter). There is no universal set of controls—depending on the size of team and your relationships with its leaders, you’ll want to mix and match—but the controls structure itself is universally applicable. Some of the most common controls that I’ve seen and used: Metrics26 align on outcomes while leaving flexibility around how the outcomes are achieved. Visions27 ensure that you agree on long-term direction while preserving short-term flexibility. Strategies28 confirm you have a shared understanding of the current constraints and how to address them. Organization design allows you to coordinate the evolution of a wider organization within the context of sub-organizations. Head count and transfers are the ultimate form of prioritization, and a good forum for validating how organizational priorities align across individual teams. Roadmaps align on problem selection and solution validation. Performance reviews coordinate culture and recognition. Etc. There are an infinite number of other possibilities, many of which are specific to your company’s particular meetings and forums. Start with this list, but don’t stick to it!

the facilitator’s role shifts from a coach who helps a team uncover and analyze “what is”—a left-brain activity—to a coach who inspires a team to innovate and design “what could be”—a right-brain activity. Skilled facilitators can easily shift between these two roles.

Based on Better Work's experience with hundred's of enterprises, there have emerged 5 critical areas of conversation between manager and contributor 1- goal setting and reflection - where the employee's OKR plan are set for the upcoming cycle. The discussion focuses on how best to align individual objectives and key results with organizational priorities. 2- ongoing progress updates, which are brief, data-driven check-ins based on the employee's real-time progress with problem-solving as needed. Progress updates really entail two basic questions - what's going well and what's not working well 3 - two-way coaching to help contributors to reach their potential and managers do a better job 4- career growth to develop skills, identify growth opportunities and expand employee's vision of their future at the company 5- light-weight performance reviews. A feedback mechanism to gather input, and summarize what the employee has accomplished since the last meeting in the context of the organization's needs. And note this conversation is held apart from the employee's annual compensation performance review.

Steve and Karen extend our view beyond the interrelationships of team, management, and leadership practices, beyond the skillful adoption of DevOps, and beyond the breaking down of silos—all necessary, but not sufficient. Here we see the evolution of holistic, end-to-end organizational transformation, fully engaged and fully aligned to enterprise purpose.

The rate of adaptation to change in response to the evolutionary forces increases incredibly when everyone in the organization gets aligned.

If we can’t handle uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure in a way that aligns with our values and furthers our organizational goals, we can’t lead.

The reason that Omega was reluctant to embrace the electronic watch is as understandable as it was wrong. Mechanical engineering was the core capability of the Swiss watchmaking industry. Swiss watchmakers successfully sold high-end timepieces to a largely upmarket customer, usually through jewelry stores. Margins were high and volumes comparatively low. Brand was important. In contrast, electronic watches were a high-volume, low-margin product sold through a variety of retail outlets, including drugstores, often under little-known brand names. The core capabilities for the new product were about electronics and manufacturing, not precision engineering. Faced with a low-end product, senior managers balked and missed the opportunity that ultimately destroyed them. Could they have embraced both exploring and exploiting? Of course! This is what ultimately happened. But to do this would have required them to be ambidextrous and to run an organization with different alignments. In terms of the congruence model, it would have meant a different strategy, different key success factors, different people and skills, and a different organizational structure and culture—a radical shift that was seen as too much effort for what was expected to be a low-margin product. To

First, if firms are to be capable of exploiting existing business models and reconfiguring existing assets in ways that allow them to explore into the future, leadership is critical. As we will see in subsequent chapters, this ability needs to be nurtured; if it is not protected, it can easily be lost. A second important theme deserving of our attention is that of organizational alignment and how the capabilities needed to explore and exploit are fundamentally different. What it takes for a firm to win in mature markets is almost the opposite of what is required for new markets and technologies. Worse, success at exploitation almost always makes it harder for firms to succeed at exploration. We quickly summarize these lessons before offering a more formal framework in Chapter 8.

With self-awareness, a basic definition tells us, “You know what you are feeling and why—and how it helps or hurts what you are trying to do.” Other key points: you can align your self-image on how others see you; you have an accurate sense of your limits and strengths, and so a more realistic self-confidence; you are clear about your sense of purpose and values, which helps you be more decisive. Cognitive scientists call this self-reflexive attention “meta-awareness.” We can watch our thoughts and feelings as they come and go, and know where our attention focuses—and change that focus if we want. This deliberate control of the beam of our attention is a mental skill. Think of our mind as a sort of gym, a place where we can practice in ways that will bulk up our mental capacities. The research on flow, you may recall, revealed that the person’s focus while in flow was 100 percent. They were one-pointed, fully present to the moment. Such absorption indicates meta-awareness, that ability to monitor and manage your own focus. But we don’t need that diamond-like beam of focus all the time: a stronger muscle for attention boosts the odds that we can get into an optimal state. Focus—paying attention where and when we want to—has endless uses. Deliberate concentration on whatever may be important to us at the moment lets us do our best; being distracted worsens our effort. Having control of our attention is for the mind what cardiovascular fitness is for the body; just as a fit heart enhances any physical task, full focus enhances whatever we do.

The collaboration between LPM and TBM is a harmonious blend of strategic alignment, financial responsibility, data-driven decision-making, and a commitment to efficiency and continuous improvement. An excel-lent meal results from the perfect combination of ingredients and techniques. Organizational success is the outcome of the harmonious integration of LPM and TBM. This recipe for excellence satisfies both the palate and the bottom line.

Reflective questions How do you want to be known as a team coach? If you are a team leader or manager, what aspects of the ‘Being, Doing and Knowing’ of team coaching would be useful in your work? When reflecting on ‘Being, Doing and Knowing’, where are your: Strengths? Areas of development? How can you build upon your strengths? What can you do to develop further as a team coach? Upon reviewing the ‘Being, Doing and Knowing’ model of team coaching development: Where do you think you spend most of your time? How aligned is this with what you would like it to be? What does this insight mean for your development as a team coach?

The skillful management of energy, individually and organizationally, makes possible something that we call full engagement. To be fully engaged, we must be physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused and spiritually aligned with a purpose beyond our immediate self-interest.

The following are some of the most common mistakes made by project managers: Not clearly understanding how or ensuring that the project is aligned with organizational objectives. Not properly managing stakeholder expectations throughout the project. Not gaining agreement and buy-in on project goals and success criteria from key stakeholders. Not developing a realistic schedule that includes all work efforts, task dependencies, bottom-up estimates, and assigned leveled resources. Not getting buy-in and acceptance on the project schedule. Not clearly deciding and communicating who is responsible for what. Not utilizing change control procedures to manage the scope of the project. Not communicating consistently and effectively with all key stakeholders. Not executing the project plan. Not tackling key risks early in the project. Not proactively identifying risks and developing contingency plans (responses) for those risks. Not obtaining the right resources with the right skills at the right time. Not aggressively pursuing issue resolution. Inadequately defining and managing requirements. Insufficiently managing and leading the project team.

HOW DOES THIS RADICAL conceptual divide over whether Judaism is a religion or an ethnicity play out in relations between the two communities? One manifestation is the lack of political cooperation between Israeli and American Jewish progressives. Though right-of-center American Jews are often active in supporting Israel’s right-leaning parties and offer financial support through American Friends of Likud and other organizations, there has been surprisingly little alignment between liberal American Jews and the Israeli political left.* There is, of course, some American organizational support for Israel’s left-leaning parties, but the relationship on the left is not nearly as vigorous as it is on the right. Why is that? Once again, the answer lies largely in the Judaism-as-religion issue, which makes it difficult for the two communities to understand each other. Einat Wilf—a secular and unabashedly nationalist former Knesset member and outspoken voice for liberal causes—is a compelling example of how Judaism-as-religion versus Judaism-as-nation creates a disconnect between the two communities. In 2018, she published a book titled The War over the Right of Return, in which she argues that the fundamental reason the Israeli-Arab conflict has never been settled has been Israel’s refusal to reject outright the Palestinian demand for a “right of return” of 1948 refugees and their descendants.* The fact that millions of Palestinians still harbor a hope of returning to “Palestine,” argues Wilf, leaves open in their minds the possibility that Israel as a Jewish nation-state can still be ended. End that charade, she argues, and one major obstacle on the road to settling the conflict will have been removed. What matters for us is not whether Wilf’s analysis is right or wrong. What we need to note is that there is scarcely an American Jewish liberal who would dare speak aloud about denying the Palestinian right of return once and for all. How does Wilf straddle the fence, some might ask? How can she be both a liberal and such a committed nationalist? To Wilf, as to many Israelis, there is simply no fence to straddle. For many Israeli progressives like her, there is no tension at all between liberal values and Judaism-as-nation. But for American Jews who see themselves primarily as a religion and not a nation, Wilf’s value set is a much more difficult position to adopt. The disconnect is between Judaism-as-justice and Judaism-as-survival. Those are obviously not always incompatible, but they are profoundly different instincts.

So Goldman’s research alignment program was consistent with the firm’s teamwork approach, because it required different divisions to work together. But the SEC concluded that it violated securities laws requiring the firm to protect clients, even if there was an alignment that followed the principles of Goldman. To executives and board members, because Goldman had leading market share in IPOs and equity offerings, the collaboration seemed to be working effectively—it was an example of teamwork.

Transforming Culture It is easier to kill an organization than it is to change it. —Tom Peters Every gathering of people, every organization has a culture. Though a local church is much more than just an organization, every church has a culture. Some church cultures are healthy and some are unhealthy, but every church has a culture. Healthy church cultures are conducive for leadership development. They don’t merely say they value leadership development; they actually believe the Church is responsible to develop and deploy leaders, and they align their actions to this deeply held conviction. Culture ultimately begins with the actual beliefs and values that undergird all the actions and behavior. A church’s capacity for developing leaders relies on the collective worldview of the church and whether it is compatible with the ambition. A church’s culture has the power to significantly impede or empower its effectiveness in the Great Commission and the call to multiplication. Leaders create culture and culture shapes leaders and churches, even without recognizing it. Ministry leaders must understand the transformative power of culture if they want to have mature communities of faith.1 Organizational culture, and more pertinently church culture, is intensely potent. Church culture is a powerful force in the hands of those who shape a local church according to God’s design. If you are reading this book in any type of building, rebar is likely holding the building up and connecting the structure together. Glance up from the book and look for the rebar (short for reinforcing bar). You can’t see it, but it is impacting everything you see. You often can’t see culture, not in the same way you can see the doctrinal statement (the expressed convictions) or the leadership pipeline (the expressed constructs), but it holds everything in place. For better or worse, culture impacts your church more than you often realize. Building on the expert work of Edgar Schein, church culture can be seen in three layers, each layer building and depending on the layer below it.2 These layers move from actual beliefs to articulated beliefs, to the expression of those beliefs (called artifacts). All three layers make up the culture in a church. Actual beliefs are what the group collectively believes, not merely says they believe.

Beware leaders that want to negotiate for shorter time frames than the team feels is prudent. Most leaders have been away from the front lines for a long time and have grown out of touch with how long it takes to plan and execute well-thought-out improvements.

In terms of overall transformation plan ownership, we recommend a sole accountable party.

We find a direct link between results and the degree to which the executive sponsor remains visibly engaged.

Whereas clarity and ingenuity are required for creating current and future state maps, focus and discipline are essential for successfully executing and sustaining improvement.

We're often asked how frequently a value stream should be improved. The answer is continuously. We understand that's a tall order for many organizations, but continuous improvement is your only way out of a culture of reactive firefighting, which prevents your organization from excelling on all levels.

Learning to see and manage work from a value stream perspective is a powerful way to instill new ways of thinking into the DNA of your organization and achieve higher levels of performance.

The primary type of value stream is one in which a good or service is requested by and delivered to an external customer. Other value streams support the delivery of value; we refer to these as value-enabling or supporting value streams.

Effective planning is a significant contributor in elevating value stream mapping from a tool to a management practice that produces long-lasting transformation

Value stream mapping often demonstrates that, at a macro level, there isn't as much variation as it "feels" like there is

Top down mandates from an executive sponsor or leader over a specific functional area are the antithesis of the type of consensus building that accelerates improvement.

How can you improve workflow if you don't understand how the work is being performed today?

It represents how work flows, who does the work, and how the value stream is performing on the day the map is created.

going the gemba is an effective way to involve those who best understand what is actually happening within the value stream: the workers themselves.

seeing the value stream in action a second time allows the team to learn more deeply. Team members nearly always make additional discoveries during the second walk.

a value stream is a series of processes that connect together and transform a customer request into a good or service that's delivered to the customer, which completes the request-to-delivery cycle

Following this scientific process assures that everyone involved in making improvements is thinking critically and breaking old habits of prematurely leaping to solutions or rushing through execution for the sake of meeting a deadline.

When we ask leaders and improvement professionals what the most difficult aspect to making change is, they nearly always say, "Sustaining.

We cannot empathize this enough: sustaining improvements begins with proper planning, followed by proper execution and management.

During the three-day mapping activity, the team had numerous discussions about the role of software testing, customer involvement and responsibility, striking the right balance of iterations, and how "minimal" a minimally viable product should be.

Transformation requires fundamental changes in an organization's DNA; done well, value stream mapping can be instrumental in facilitating the necessary shifts in mindsets and behaviors.

significant time and money is wasted when organizations attempt to make improvements without a clearly defined, externally focused improvement strategy that places the customer in the center.

Value stream mapping provides a clear line of sight to the customer and the holistic means to clearly see how traditionally disparate parts of the organization are interconnected, which can serve as the catalyst for reorganizing according to value streams.

It's the process of value stream mapping rather than the maps themselves that carries the greatest power by installing transformational mindsets and behaviors into the DNA of an organization.

a typical value stream map has three key components: information flow, work flow, and a timeline.

There's a big difference between needing to change a plan because new data or new conditions warrant it and deviating from a plan because an avoidable distraction has taken away the focus of an improvement team

experiencing fewer problems and frustrations in their day-to-day work, the work force will become even more engaged in the improvement process

By comparing the defined target with actual results, the team can determine if its hypothesis was proven and make appropriate adjustments if it wasn't

we use the term countermeasure instead of solution, to aid in creating a continuous improvement culture, which begins with how people think and speak. The word solution smacks of an over-the-wall, permanent-fix mindset, which discounts the ever-changing world we work and live in.

In practice, all ideas need to be viewed as merely hypotheses; testing and evaluation of the test results must precede across-the-board adoption.

Improvements are temporary countermeasures, not permanent solutions.

Next, the team will summarize the metrics across the full value stream. We recommend, at a minimum, ... four ... summary metrics: Total Lead Time...Total Process Time ... Activity Ratio ... Rolled Percent Complete and Accurate

Freed capacity is the result of process time reduction through the elimination of wasteful activities and/or optimizing work.

While the current state briefing is often sobering, it's a helpful psychological space from which to accept the need for change and generate innovative future state thinking