Our youngest son recently let me know that the steering on his car didn’t feel right.

The first thing out of my mouth was “how long’s this been going on?”

“I don’t know, a little while – and there’s a STEERING light on the dash.”

When I checked out the car, sure enough, the SERVICE STEERING NOW light was on… and a few others.

I bet you have a pretty good idea about what I experienced when I took it for a drive…

And you’re probably thinking, pump, belt, power steering fluid…

Hold that thought. You’ll love this! I know my mechanic did!

Now, as a business leader, you probably have a number of metrics that serve the same purpose as the warning lights on my son’s dashboard.

And even if you don’t, you’ve probably developed a sixth sense about when something isn’t quite right – even though it might not be showing up in your numbers – but you kinda know something’s off.

More times than not, we’ve found that many of these things are the result of a lack of alignment.

So what do I mean by ALIGNMENT?

To be cliché – this means everyone throughout the entire organization is on the same page.

Not only are they on the same page, but they’re all reading the same words at the same time

This means that everyone knows and embraces your company’s Mission, Vision and Customer Promise.

There is no second guessing about who your core customer is and how your products or services deliver value for them.

Everyone knows your number one priority as well the role they play in helping you achieve it.

And everyone understands your biggest (singular) external threat, as well as internal challenge – and they fully support your strategy for tackling them.

One of the best examples of Alignment that I know of is a story about JFK.

Back in ‘62, president Kennedy was visiting NASA. The story goes that at some point during the day, President Kennedy took a wrong turn and ended up in a hallway where he noticed a janitor who was cleaning with a mop.

The President said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy. What are you doing?”

The janitor looked up and said, “Well, Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.“

Now that’s what I call alignment – wouldn’t you agree?

So back to my son’s car…

When I took it down the road all I could think was “how on earth has he been driving this thing?”

Well, much to my mechanic’s delight, because we didn’t get the car in as soon as the SERVICE STEERING light came on. We were informed that we needed – just wait for it – an entirely new steering mechanism, two new struts, two new tires and of course a complete ALIGNMENT!

Look, if you want to get your organization to its NEXT LEVEL of profitable growth, and if any of your warning lights are on, you need to address them head on and keep your organization aligned!

Trust me, you don’t want to ignore your warning lights for too long because if you do, no one will be happier than your competitors!

And that’s today’s tip for getting your organization to its NEXT LEVEL of profitable growth through CLARITY + ALIGNMENT + CONSISTENCY