Sometimes strategy misalignment is subtle and difficult to spot. If your corporate plan is not well-aligned, chaos will be more likely.

A corporate strategy is an amalgamation of strategic goals to support an organisation's mission and vision. Corporate strategy aligns key strategic outcomes and goals with the organization's operations. This is how all elements within an organization's eco-system, which is the sum total of all functions within it, move in the exact same direction. This is called mission drift, when operational initiatives diverge from strategic goals.

Strategic misalignment is a serious problem. This can lead chaos and unintended outcomes. If not addressed promptly, problems can grow into major organizational problems.

How to know if you have a corporate strategy that aligns with your goals?

These are the signs you should be watching out for.

Financial Projections Not Complete

Missing projections can be caused by many things, but most often it is strategic misalignment. Why? Strategy alignment is the union of operations/execution, strategy. If they are not aligned, you can see the non-strategic actions that can be done at the grass-roots level of an organisation. Corporate strategy consulting firms suggest that workers and managers decide their own direction. It will be obvious that there are delays in product launches, operations, and service lines, which can directly impact revenue streams.

Growth has halted

Organizational misalignment is a common cause of organizational misalignment. It can lead to organizations not growing profitably. Both the leaders and employees do not desire to see growth. They are not able to coordinate their efforts in order for the ship to turn around, despite their best intentions. This is especially true in situations where governance is weak or absent. In order to fix the company's errors, all employees must collaborate. This requires that employees work together to coordinate execution and strategy.

Common Problems with Reactive Spending, Duplicate Initiatives

If the strategy isn’t aligned properly, companies might drift to a self directed model that is farther from corporate goals. Poor quarterly and/or annual results can be caused if you have duplicate initiatives or reactive spending. This could also occur due to interdependent projects competing for limited resources. Unsynchronized efforts could lead to despair and a vicious cycle where time and money are wasted. For this reason, you should seek the assistance of a New York-based business consultant .

Morale is Increasingly Common

An organization's strategy may be misaligned and cause chaos. Organizational chaos may affect employees and leaders. This can have a negative impact on morale. It is possible to observe a decline in morale and corporate culture.

Lower revenue and/or profit

Strategic misalignment could have an immediate impact on your bottom-line. Many reasons can cause revenue and profitability to drop. Most are due to strategy misalignment. Any one of these indicators can impact profitability. New products and services that are not successful may be delayed because they haven't been very successful.

Strategies which are not aligned

It takes time and effort to succeed with strategy. It takes discipline, time, and effort to correct misalignments and re-instill strategic alignment. This was not an overnight issue and it won’t go away.

The best plan governance and bidirectional planning (bottom up/top down) can align corporate strategies, and help avoid negative consequences. This article will explain how to correct strategic misalignment.