Are you working at cross-purposes? If you randomly selected 50 employees and asked them basic questions about the heart of your organization, would their answers be similar? For example, ask them: What is our organization’s mission? What are our core values? What factors are most important to our future success? What are our core competencies? How does someone get ahead in our organization? How do we differentiate ourselves from the competition? What are our key initiatives this year? How will our industry change over the next few years? How will we respond to this change?

What’s the impact of this phenomenon? According to a 2005 Conference Board survey, two–thirds of workers do not identify with or feel motivated to drive their employer’s business goals; 40 percent of workers feel disconnected from their employers; and another 25 percent of employees are just “showing up to collect a paycheck.” Unless your employees give similar answers to these most basic questions, waste, redundancies, inefficiencies, confusion, and anxiety are likely; the result—employees working at cross-purposes.

Additional Reading:
It’s Time to Get Focused
Company Politics Hurt More Than You’d Expect
Avoid Distractions

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