It must be incredibly difficult for leaders to be successful in this age when their business world is constantly changing, from globalization to digitalization, with new pressures popping from COVID to retention issues. Even the learning curve of people using advanced software technology is causing confusing changes to existing business models, confusing managers and staff alike. We are all living in a new age of disruption, which unfortunately is creating new pockets of hidden dysfunctions within their organization. The challenge today is how to make leaders more successful, without the costs associated with change.

The wealth creation model is changing too. Nowadays, the field of technology dominates the charts, 8 out of the 10 World’s Richest are in this field (Forbes Real Time Billionaires; Accessed I$2.9 Trillion, being 6 times higher than the leading banking company JPMorgan Chase (https://companiesmarketcap.com/), and much higher than most countries’ GDP, including the world’s 8th highest—Italy (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/). Young technology unicorns can become key players in the span of a few years. Countless companies’ traditional models have been disrupted in favor of digital forms of their business.  As a result of that, traditional companies are experiencing declining revenue, declining profit, lack of customer loyalty, and challenges in survival.

A recent survey by PwC shows that CEOs see issues such as Cyber risks, health risks, macroeconomic volatility, etc., as threats to their revenues, to attracting/retaining talents, and to innovate through technology/processes. Some industries are in decline, while some industries are doing better. For those that are in decline, they need to take measures to improve their business. that are aligned with shareholder needs, customer wants, and employee expectations.  As quoted from Dr. Deming, “Every business system is perfectly designed to get the results it is getting.”  Successful leaders need to have situational awareness—they need to know what is going on around them, down to the core of what is happening in their organization. How do successful leaders make those improvements?  New business intelligent technology can help, and one example is Predixxa.

Predixxa is a new Alignment Diagnostic tool that blends technology with business science, to find the dysfunctions in an organization and show what each leader can do to improve it.  It covers various areas, such as the emotional and rational drivers of engagement of the workforce, measures of leadership, process functions, people needs, and so much more. Successful leaders use this technology to become aware of the mindsets and operational barriers in their business.

“Predixxa’s Alignment Diagnostic discovers “leaks” everywhere; “plugging” them internally improves revenue and organizational efficiency” – Stanley Labovitz.

At a volatile time like this, it is increasingly vital to discover and repair dysfunctions to work towards alignment. There are 4 common key elements in every organization: Strategy, Customers, People, and Processes. When the key elements of an organization work in concert with each other, it drives growth and profit. Leadership, culture, along with how well and often these elements are measured, make a massive difference in the organization’s performance. We call these 4 elements the core business systems pertaining to every business.

The more dysfunctions that exist in these business systems, the more the leakage of efficiency and operating performance, thus the greater  the economic loss. Successful leaders discover the dysfunctions, and “fix” the most damaging, department by department.

The following is a diagram of the alignment Business Systems:

Source:  George Labovitz & Victor Rosansky, Power of Alignment, 1997

After analyzing the business systems for dysfunctions, unique analysis tools are then needed to pathway actions and solutions. Predixxa’s diagnostic chart uses the Pearson Correlation Coefficient analysis model to display the issues in an organization on a graph, split between High Performance-High Importance, High Performance-Low Importance, Low Performance-Low Importance, and Low Performance-High Importance so that leaders can easily see which projects would be the most important to tackle immediately.

Alignment Diagnostic wheel: it visually displays the state of the organization, providing a score for overall performance and each workgroup, which then uncovers the root cause, so leaders can perform analysis and correction. It is viewable per demographic and can be used for awareness of how things are going, providing direction and shows which aspects of the organization has “leakages.” Different demographics can be seen side by side, aggregated, and intersected.

Managers’ Report:

Predixxa allows for organizations to zoom in on each manager and team leader, and understand how employees view them, and their alignment of their workgroup with their customers. Unless people are aligned with each other, know where this organization is going, and know how person contributes to the success of that company, then there’s a gap. Gaps lead to misalignment, and dysfunctions begin to grow. It is crucial to evaluate each manager, as found by Gallup, “the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long term success” (Jim Clifton & Jim Harter, It’s The Manager, 2019).

Among other charts, Predixxa also enables leaders to see strengths and weaknesses of each manager. This allows CEOs to slice the data, peel back layers and see the discrepancies. They can see what each of their Managers are good at, and what they need to rapidly repair to improve their department’s performance.

Predixxa has 3-tiers in its approach to successful leadership:

• Discovery
• Execution
• Maintenance

The first thing leaders need to do is to isolate these dysfunctions, most effectively with the aid of technology. Using Predixxa, it’s like running a CAT scan on the organization. After identifying them, then the process begins to repair the dysfunctions. Attention is given to the managers, as previously mentioned, the quality of managers is a major factor in the organization’s long term success. Then, actions are taken to prevent them from resurfacing. Using PULSE™ for continuous improvement, as well as risk reduction, constant performance growth, and customer satisfaction. Every single organization has dysfunctions, and the bigger the organization, the more dysfunctions will exist.

Implementing this process takes around 30-40 days, assuming the management is committed, and they have the resources and time. Working together with Organization Alignment Specialists, the process goes as such:

1. Understand Stakeholders/Discovery: Certified Organization Alignment Specialists need to talk to the top management to understand the situation, their concerns, to then customize the survey (and open ended questions) to ensure that each item asked has a direct, correlated relationship to the organization’s strategic goal. It must be designed to expose asymptomatic and preliminary symptoms of organizational dysfunction within each workgroup, and offers fixes for the issues before they become disabling problems. Then emails to employees and manager evaluation analysis are automated.
2. Diagnostic Engine: Data collection takes place using the aforementioned online survey with a hyperlink access, seeking at least 90% responses. Each manager receives a unique login and password for their evaluations. The software analyzes the data.
3. Analysis and Report: After the data is collected, Alignment consultants will examine it and interpret the gaps and opportunities for improvement at the macro and micro level. They will provide a high-level executive report with in-depth written analysis of findings, insights, and action recommendations for the executive team. The report displays the state of the culture, identifying misalignments and analysis (including performance variations, correlation analysis key drivers, recommendations, and action planning). Each manager also receives individual reports with their own culture analysis, action plans, recommendations, open ended response from their teams coaching and mentoring tools with exercises. It will show them what actions need to be taken. Several key issues are placed as priorities and plans need to be drawn. What can be done about these issues?
4. Post Diagnostic Implementation and Company Growth: A system of internal training and support for the HR team to coach and mentor each manager. Monitor the growth of the organization with the projects up and running.

The benefits of implementing Alignment Diagnostic is clear. It informs C-Levels what they need to focus on, what to promptly do to better the organization, in accordance to what shareholders, employees, as well as customers need and want. Clifton & Harter (2019) from Gallup found that “the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long term success.” Predixxa allows CEOs to zoom in on managers and team leaders and see how each can immediately improve the way they run things. It also allows for employees, who run through the processes daily, to pool in with their concerns and ideas. “Aligned organizations outperform their nearest competitor by every financial measure” (George Labovitz & Victor Rosansky, 1997). Predixxa becomes a personalized guide to bring your organization into better results—profitability and other financial measures.

In an era where advancements are happening at much faster rates, organizations need to adapt and keep up with these changes. Adapting could occur in a range of ways, whether it be strategic or operational changes. In order to implement changes that are effective, it is necessary to thoroughly evaluate the organization from top to bottom. For that, it is critical to understand the needs and expectations of the various stakeholders. Understanding this clearly is what can properly inform leaders on the next steps towards greater results.

For more information on Predixxa, please contact sherni@otiinternational.com