Overview

Management has no more critical role than to motivate and engage large numbers of people to work together toward a common goal assisting them by removing obstacles (to their success).
Gary Convis, President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, USA

Bob Neurath agrees with Gary Convis about the criticality of aligning the organization. He understands that it's common to hear the following phrases within an organization and agrees with them: "We've got to get everybody pulling on the oars at the same time," or "We've got to get everybody on board with our strategy." Maybe the need for these kinds of rhetorical statements is obvious, but just exactly why is it so important to align an organization to a common strategy and set of goals? What are the fundamental drivers for this need, and how do we accomplish that elusive alignment that is so badly needed? This need will be discussed in this chapter.