Bridging the ‘Execution Gap’ through top team alignment

As the famous saying goes, “it is the frontline that produces the bottom line in any company, and it is the top team that leads the frontline of any company” — alignment of the top team is crucial to the profits and growth of any organization. If the top team is focused and aligned, it can lead the other teams well without confusion. But, this is easier said than done. It is seen that experience, knowledge and diversity sometimes become the biggest impediments to alignment and result in ego clashes.

Top team alignment is one of the biggest challenges that an organization can face today. With organizations facing the most frustrating challenges of consistently delivering on the results and dealing with the ‘Execution Gap’, an effectively aligned top team can help bridge the divide. In the fall of 2002, FranklinCovey teamed with Harris Interactive to administer an xQTM Assessment to over 11,000 respondents representing executives, managers, and front line workers in 10 functional areas in 10 major industries. Representing the “Execution Quotient” of organizational performance, the xQTM Assessment is a set of 30 questions that measure the extent to which people – (1) understand the organization’s highest priorities; (2) know what they are supposed to do to achieve them; (3) are passionate about those objectives; (4) stay focused on them; and (5) work collaboratively and creatively together to accomplish them. In summary, the xQTM Assessment analyzes what the experts call the “execution gap,” the difference between what organizations commit to do and what they actually accomplish.

The results of the initial national assessment were depressing and encouraging — depressing because they were so uniformly and concretely poor; and encouraging because they identified achievable solutions to this pervasive problem. The overall results of the study showed that only 21 percent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “My organization consistently achieves its most important goals.”  

The results of the xQTM Assessment identified eight overarching reasons why managers and work groups do not achieve their organization’s most important priorities:

These reasons can also be seen as the factors that lead to misaligned top teams, and hence, it becomes imperative for the CEO to understand and create an environment that helps in creating a more collaborative environment. Although none of these eight execution gaps are “burning insights” to any executive or manager who has thought deeply on the subject; however, armed with their enterprise’s unique xQTM data, leaders of all organizational descriptions can narrow in and focus on their organization’s biggest execution gaps that especially lie at the top.  

Top teams too need leaders to lead them and hence, there has to be someone at the helm of affairs who is trusted and well respected. People need to be empowered and a meritorious leader at the top, who operates more from moral authority than formal authority, can help in doing so. Synergy is the only option when it comes to building long-term sustainable and superior growth.