Do you remember being at a childhood party and playing the annoying game of telephone? (Surely I’m not the only one who had to endure this!)

Here’s how it went: You sat with your friends in a line, and the person at the front of the line whispered a secret message in the ear of the person right behind them. The message was then passed down from person to person, in whispers, until it reached the end of the line. And the great ‘fun’ of the game (in theory, because it was never actually that much fun) was that the person who ultimately revealed the secret message was never, ever correct. What started out as “I think Jane Doe has a stuffed teddy bear in her room every night” usually ended up as “I eat plain dough and don’t care, that’s right.”

My point in dredging up this childhood memory is simple:

  • Trickle-down communication is miscommunication.
  • Miscommunication results in misalignment.
  • Misalignment leads to missed opportunities.

Anyone in business today can attest to this. If you expect your executive goals and strategies to eventually make their way to the factory floor through second hand messages or other diluted forms of communication, you can also expect that those strategies will arrive garbled and inaccurate. And this is a huge problem for businesses.

When employees across various departments and organizational levels aren’t operating from a unified strategy, it makes it next to impossible to come together to work toward common objectives. You can’t help employees establish goals with any purpose because you don’t know the overarching drivers behind their goals. And if you do set goals, they’re likely to be out of synch with company goals or inaccurate, which disengages your employees. Just read the results of this 2008 survey from Salary.com to see what happens to productivity when employees feel disengaged. In other words, you are wasting valuable resources and squandering the potential of your workforce.

In our current economy, the last thing in the world you can afford is to be wasteful—particularly when it comes to your talent. The most effective way to reach your business goals is by developing your talent. And the way to start developing your talent is by first ensuring that employees are aligned with business strategies and objectives. Everyone has to be on the same page before you can move ahead.

In a nutshell, this means:

Creating a unified business strategy, and then making sure all employees understand that strategy, clearly and accurately. No games of telephone here!

Ensuring all employees are in the right jobs, with the right skills, at the right times, in order to push the business strategy forward.

Continuously setting, tracking, and re-evaluating organizational and individual goals with the sole purpose of furthering the company’s objectives. Having the ability to cascade goals in your performance management solution helps tremendously.

Prioritizing critical tasks and eliminating or refining any non-strategic activities, so employees stay focused.

Regularly assessing performance against goals to hold workers accountable, and providing that feedback to employees.

Putting it all together with other aspects of talent development, such as learning and compensation, so employees are engaged and equipped to reach objectives.

Check out these links for more details: