Alignment

I agree with Drucker that alignment is a big issue. I have been a part of several groups that have faced problems when someone hasn't pulled their own weight. Not only is the entire mission pushed back, everyone then has to take on the added burden. It feels frustrating to know that you have done your best and yet the result of our group efforts are torn down by a single person.

This is an example from high school when our society was responsible for setting up a banquet. The planning started off very well with everyone volunteering to join a particular group. Each group was then in charge of various aspects like setting up, getting sponsors, food, etc. In the beginning things were looking well with all the groups moving according to plan. But later as we approached the day of the banquet we noticed that the all the groups were on target except of the one in charge of entertainment.

The banquet would last a couple hours since it was also a celebration party for the special Olympics athletes. So entertainment was sorely needed in order to keep things throughout the entire banquet. As we pushed for results from the entertainment group the entire group broke down. Now everyone else had their own projects to work on however, tis matter took priority. After a lot of discussion, it was decided that we would supply the entertainment ourselves due to the limited time available in order to hire someone. People volunteered to dress up as characters and everyone else scrambled to create games, compile music and come up with homemade ideas. In the end the banquet was a success with good responses but the entire process took a large toll on us especially since we did not expect the extra workload.

In this scenario, I can't exactly say that the management was bad. We had set up weekly sessions to monitor each groups responsibilities and progress. There is also a fine line between discovering the problem late or taking action too early. Each group had its own set of problems in the early weeks but managed to solve them later. Technically, I suppose that its the entertainment groups fault for not performing their tasks.

It's easy to place blame but its harder to correct mistakes. In our case, everything was perfect at the end. Its just that we had to deal with an unnecessary excess burden. We discussed this in class the other day that Drucker has also mentioned everything is the managements responsibility. Its the management fault if the end result was poor or if any mistakes occur. It is a rather harsh, or a cut and dry assessment but I agree with his viewpoint. Our method of handling this situation reflects that.

I think that this is true of most organizations without an official management board. Our club's assessment was that regardless of who failed, it is a failure of the entire club. The success of the event depends on all of our efforts and rather than waste time and place blame, we must work towards the completion of the event. When looking at today's corporates, upon a failure they simply sacrifice the management but the original problem is not yet solved.

Back to the main topic, I think that alignment is brought about through communication. The CIOs we interviewed in class also mentioned that the most important thing to foster teamwork is frequent and direct communication. It is thanks to this that our problem was caught early and we were able to create an alternative plan.

This is example form freshman year when we had to write a group research paper. The entire group met regularly for meetings, however one member did not turn in his portion of the drafts on time. This happened during every group meeting we had set up for the drafts. However, all of us had various things to do and we did not communicate properly. Finally during our final draft we realized that he had not written his piece at all. The rest of us then scrambled to finish his piece without a good understanding of his topic. We did not have enough time to research on it since we had our own project. We ended up “fudging” his part of the paper and instead embellished upon ours. If we had maintained proper communication throughout the project we would not have written a lower quality paper.

It is important when many groups or individuals are working in parallel but towards to same goal to be aligned. If not, they may end up pulling each other behind and create more obstacles in the way of progress. From personal experience I can see that this problem can be solved just through the use of communication.