It is said that ships don’t sink because of the water around them, they sink because of the water that gets in them. The same principle can be seen in action when we look at leadership teams that drive the performance of a business. A business does not sink when there’s unity of purpose or when its leadership is united in command, it sinks when the unity becomes porous.
Unity of purpose is simply being unified around a shared purpose of why the business exists. It equates to a shared vision of the essence and noble intention of the business. So, one business may have an intention to transform how people source their entertainment (streaming), whilst another may be angling to transform how cars are driven (autonomously). It is part of the connective tissue that undergirds the scaffolding of the business and should be one of the “living or lived” values.
Unity of command occurs when the multiple chains of command across a business are united around a single, common and shared mission.
Unity of command occurs when the multiple chains of command across a business are united around a single, common and shared mission. This unification equates to the synchronized mission and methodology of getting the job done and focuses on guiding the business in an effective way, to achieve its strategic intentions, goals and objectives.
I believe that businesses should make the pursuit of a united command at the top, an obsessive priority. There are countless stories that make the case for the victories that follow a leadership team that utilizes united command as the upwind for achieving performance excellence and overall commercial growth.
Overwhelmingly though, my experience has been that authentic unity of command at the top is uncommon. It’s uncommon for many reasons, one of which is the lack of unity of purpose as a driving lever of the business.
Overwhelmingly though, my experience has been that authentic unity of command at the top is uncommon.
The relentless pursuit of unity of purpose should propagate a united command at the top. Can you imagine how powerfully the coherence between unity of purpose and a united command amongst the leadership team, can impact service excellence results and business growth?
There are some very simple options available to a business that wishes to build unified command at the top. The strategy that accompanies these options is built around the concept of “collective and synchronized” effort, cascaded from the highest level of the business, to the lowest level.
A useful start is to create two charters that build collective effort and repel silo-type operations. A leadership charter and a managerial charter. The leadership charter locks in the way in which the business strategists will execute their roles and will require all members to be compliant. A managerial charter will follow the same pattern, at the managerial chain of command level, so that all departments are managed similarly. No more “managing by personality.”
The relentless pursuit of unity of purpose should propagate a united command at the top.
Both of these charters will need to be congruent with the purpose and the values of the business. Needless to say, a condition for success would be testing for managerial congruence across the business, to determine how well the coalition is performing.
Another contributor to the unification would be to have all chain of command personnel define what success would look like, when all the results of their managerial goals are combined at the strategic level. The efficacy of this system rests on all goals being achieved and places team interdependence at the heart of endgame success.
A useful start is to create two charters that build collective effort and repel silo-type operations. A leadership charter and a managerial charter.
In any construction effort, there will be obstacles to be overcome. In the case of building unity of command, one such obstacle will be the human tendency to want to outshine the “perceived” competition and the fact that internal colleagues who should be regarded as allies, are cast as competitors. The competitive spirit in small doses is tolerable, can become counter-productive if it remains unchecked and if ignored indefinitely, the perpetrators may even become ungovernable.
I have encountered many business leaders who are well intentioned in their attempts to build unity of command, but struggle to gain momentum because their efforts are at odds with the existing (adverse) culture or the values at the top. They may be interfering with the status quo, a formidable adversary when one is attempting to energize change.
Finally, let me say that the rise and fall of service excellence is triggered by many moving parts. The state of unity of command at the top of a business, is one such element that can help or hinder its customer experience brand.
Finally, let me say that the rise and fall of service excellence is triggered by many moving parts. The state of unity of command at the top of a business, is one such element that can help or hinder its customer experience brand.
Why? Because unity at the top means customers benefit from consistent service delivery. Disunity on the other hand, spells trouble.