Total Alignment

There are roadblocks to progress built into the current way many corporations operate. From retail to manufacturing to even the publishing industry, it seems that old patterns continue to exist.. When these are combined with ineffective strategies and poor leadership, they cause many corporations to ‘limp along’, get into insurmountable debt and/or fail to perform as profitably as they could, and never reach the potential for which they were created. These patterns must change – and can change - with new learning and leadership.

Despite the plethora of information and many books on the market, there are several key issues in the business world that business leaders have still been unable to solve. This book has solved them for other leaders in countries outside the USA proven by the fact the book has sold +40,000 units to date in the Spanish edition. These issues have a huge impact on productivity, profitability and innovation.

These include:
The existence of organizational silos

Organizational silos – a business term used to refer to departments working as separate units and not sharing information with other departments in the same company – have existed for over 30 years. The lack of communication may be intentional or unintentional. Silos are “seen as growing pains for most organizations of all sizes.” Forbes [2013]. Moreover, silos exist both horizontally and vertically as “individual units have high barriers between them or senior leadership can be completely isolated from lower management levels.” Forbes [2011]. By 2014 [Harvard Business Review] many had given up breaking the silos and proposed working across them.

Poor execution of strategy

Nine out of ten businesses fail to implement their strategic plan – 60% build a strategy that doesn’t fit the budget, 75% fail to link incentives to strategy and 95% of employees fail to understand the organization’s strategy [Fortune magazine]. Failed strategies put companies at risk and damage their competitive position. The root cause of failed strategies is poor execution.

Wasting time in meetings

Meetings are major time wasters for executives worldwide. The way most companies organize and carry out their meetings results in huge amounts of time being wasted by unfocused and undisciplined events. “Meetings are one of those necessary evils of business; important for exchanging thoughts and ideas, making plans, and reviewing progress, but all too often interminably long and a huge drain on cost and productivity.” [The Guardian 2014].

Overload of emails

Email overload is a problem facing many organizations. Email overload is costing billions as high skill knowledge workers spend 28% of their workweek managing email. [Forbes 2014]. While important emails should be answered, the vast majority of the emails are unnecessary. The root cause is that emails are sent in such volumes because responsibilities are ill defined in many organizations and managers feel they need to copy a huge list of people to protect their actions from criticism and to respect hierarchical protocols.

Total Alignment presents a system that effectively resolves each of these issues and many others that business leaders face today. Its uniqueness lies in integrating the solutions into one unified approach that boosts the organizations’ success. Total Alignment has transformed companies in four countries and has sold an estimated number of +40,000 books in the Latin market.

The Total Alignment system is the result of innovative thinking, solid research, and thirty successful years of consulting experience in major companies throughout Mexico and more recently in Colombia. The system has also been implemented in a major German insurance company, two large English retailers and several companies in Austria. Implementations are presently expanding into the USA and this book will be the first opportunity for the U.S. audience to harness the power of this proven management system.