Alan Ramias is a Partner of the Performance Design Lab (PDL). He has had 25 years of experience in performance improvement and organization effectiveness. Alan joined The Rummler-Brache Group in 1991 and led major successful performance improvement engagements within Fortune 500 companies. Upon leaving RBG, Alan founded his own consulting company, where he continues to practice in the field of performance consulting. He is also involved in several organizational restructuring initiatives in the U.S. and Asia.
Ramias maintains that achieving organizational results depends on two things: measuring the right processes for performance feedback, and managers knowing what to do with the feedback they receive.
Proper alignment for organizational performance refers to all the organizational elements that affect performance. The key issues for organizational alignment and performance include:
- Aligning the mission of IT with the business strategy
- Designing for optimal organizational performance at the value chain level
- Integrating BPM improvements with organizational performance
- Aligning enterprise goals, business process architecture, enabling systems
- Expanding business IT to include organizational performance
- Delivering ROI with BPM and organizational performance technology
- Guiding the effective integration of measurement systems and tools
Alignment is necessary before there can be sustained, organization-wide performance improvements. The obstacles to good performance are due to misalignment at many levels.
The first principle of system alignment is to be effective; the system must be aligned across every level. This includes:
- Value chain
- Business process architecture
- Business processes
- Goals and expectations
The second principle for aligning organizational performance requires that the human performance system be aligned to the organizational system. What this means according to Ramias, is that if a good performer is put into a bad system, the system will win every time.
The third principle requires that the management system carry out the aligning. Effective management is key to keeping the performance system aligned. These include the set of practices used by managers to plan performance, set expectations and goals, and develop and implementing future plans.
In order to manage performance, managers must monitor performance and get feedback in order to make decisions about and corrections to process performance.
Addressing misalignments is the key to fixing the management system. It is necessary to fix the misalignments in the management system first, and then use the management system to fix the other misalignments within the organization. Tools for effective performance management are:
- Setting goals and expectations
- Planning for performance results
- Providing adequate performance support
- Monitoring performance
- Diagnosing variation
- Taking appropriate action
- Closing the performance loop by building learning and improvements back into performance support
In summary, Ramias reviewed the principles of aligned organizational performance. Alignment has to be done both vertically and horizontally across the organization. Change cascades down from the top. Management gets feedback from the changed plans, and then makes corrective actions based on the results. Processes are aligned all the way down to the function and job levels.
