Align: A Leadership Blueprint for Aligning Enterprise Purpose, Strategy and Organisation

by Jonathan Trevor

Shortlisted for the 2020 Business Book AwardsWhy do some businesses thrive, while many more struggle and fail? A key reason – and the focus of this book – is strategic alignment. This is the careful arrangement of the various elements of an enterprise – from its business strategy to its organisation – to best support the fulfillment of its long-term purpose. The best-aligned enterprises are the best performing. Most executives recognise that their enterprises should be managed in this aligned way, but lack a robust system of thought to allow them to execute strategic alignment effectively and realise its full benefits. There are thousands of organisations globally that are operating below their potential simply because they are not aligned. This book aims to change that. In Align, Jonathan Trevor provides a blueprint for how strategic alignment can be effectively developed, implemented and sustained. Drawing upon active research at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School (with contributions from the joint works of Dr Jonathan Trevor and Dr Barry Varcoe), Jonathan also provides practical case studies and evidence-based insights – culminating in a thoughtful and compelling message to help leaders everywhere to improve their alignment and enterprise performance.

Genres: Business

257 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 28, 2019

Reviews

[Zeynep · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to the book, ensuring performance through a closely controlled enterprise value chain that links the enterprise's purpose to its business strategy, organizational capabilities, organizational architecture, and management systems is what is meant by strategic alignment. Each link considers regarding questions:
Enterprise's Purpose: What do we do and why do we do it?
Business Strategy: What are we trying to win at to fulfill our purpose?
Organizational Capability: What do we need to be good at to win?
Organizational Architecture: What makes us good enough to win?
Management Systems: What delivers the performance we need to win?
There are four different strategic approaches, each of which represents a unique way in which a business could arrange itself and its strategies in order to compete successfully:
-Efficiency Maximiser
-Enterprising Responder
-Portfolio Integrator
-Network Exploiter
There are so many well-explained and in-depth examples for each link and the strategic alignment framework. This book could be a beneficial starting point for mapping an enterprise's strategic planning.