Eliminate “Alignment” problems with R-pM

What is the unsolvable alignment problem?

We keep hearing about problems aligning the organization and the business, strategy with operations, information systems with the business, business processes with operations, accounting with the business, outsourced services with internal operations, human resources and business needs, financial strategies and information technology strategies and corporate strategies, tangible assets and intangible assets, etc. How many books have written and methods proposed for solving alignment problems? Despite all these books and methods, the unsolvable alignment problems remain.

We attempt to align our structures and solutions with the business, but to this day, we have never defined the business or defined how to align with the business.

The unsolvable alignment problem is simply: How do we align the multiple business performance solutions, which we must integrate and utilize together, to produce economic output in specific business results?

Result-performance Management (R-pM) eliminates the alignment problem by organizing and managing the actual business

Result-performance Management (R-pM) does not attempt to align structures or solutions with the business. R-pM eliminates the alignment problem by organizing and managing the actual business, the utilization of capital in performance to produce value in results. R-pM separates results in a result structure as one component of the business and performance solutions in a performance structure as the other component of the business. The structures are related to create one integrated business structure when performance solutions are deployed and aligned with other solutions to produce specific results. With R-pM, there is nothing else to align.

The alignment problem has two causes: multiple structures laid over the business and the focus on performance within a structure

The unsolvable alignment problems are caused by 20^th century management mistakes:

1. Failure to organize and manage the business, instead laying multiple organization and management structures over the business
2. The flawed definition of performance that defines not only activity and solutions, such as human performance, but also output results produced, such as sales performance, as performance

Rigid structures laid over the business go out of alignment with every change to the business, and must be periodically realigned with the actual business. Defining results as performance forces us to align performance with performance, and prevents us from defining and relating results to build a result structure, and aligning performance solutions with the output result produced.

Organization and management structures, laid over the business, go out of alignment with each business change

Every enterprise has an enterprise organization structure that defines various functions, departments, positions, reporting relationships, etc. The organization structure organizes the enterprise, not the enterprise business. Once an enterprise organization structure is laid over the business, the business can never be managed. The enterprise is managed by laying separate management structures over the business for strategy, planning, business processes, accounting, performance, projects, information systems, supply chain, production and logistics, customer service, management information, etc.

Each contrived structure is rigid and defines its own entities, interrelationships, and work requirements, instead of defining the business. The business results produced and performance solutions utilized change continually, while the structures remain as contrived. This causes the structures to move further out of alignment with the actual business. Eventually, the organization structure is reorganized. Strategies and plans are revised. The business process is redesigned. A new chart of accounts is drawn up. Management reports are reformatted. Then the cycle starts again as the new rigid structures go out of alignment.

20^th Century Management aligns performance with performance

We try to align overlaid structures with other overlaid structures. Within each structure, we try to align performance with performance and solutions with solutions. The alignment problem will never be solved until performance solutions are aligned against the output results the performance solutions must produce. Our organization, strategy, processes, information systems, outsourced services, tangible and intangible assets, internal operations, etc. all produce results. We can solve the alignment problem by defining, relating, and structuring our results to have something fixed in place, against which to align solutions.

We can no longer define results as performance. We must separate results and performance as two distinct components of the business, and organize performance in a performance structure and organize results in a result structure.

R-pM organizes the business structure to align performance solutions utilized with the result produced

All the entities like organization, strategy, information systems, processes, intangible and tangible assets, outsourced solutions, internal solutions, etc. are defined as specific performance solutions in one performance structure in R-pM. R-pM defines all the results to be produced by the business in a result structure. The performance structure is shown down the rows and the result structure is across the columns in one integrated business structure. Specific performance solutions are deployed to produce specific results. Solutions that must be integrated and utilized together in performance are aligned to produce the same result, such as a product, a sale, an invoice, a maintained machine, a learning student/day, etc.

With R-pM, the business is always organized and solutions are aligned with results. A strategic business structure shows the planned results to be produced and the aligned performance solutions to be utilized at the strategic horizon.

The integrated business structure is all that is used to organize and manage the business. The accounting structure, which is updated and maintained to record the actual business, is retained until external requirements change, but all other structures are abolished.

21^st Century Management eliminates 20^th century problems

Eliminate the alignment problem and other costly 20^th century problems by organizing your business for 21^st Century Management. Your 21^st Century Management Manual, The R-pM Toolkit, is available today and is under continual development to expand and refine 21^st Century Management. Learn more about the R-pM breakthrough for 21^st century management and subscribe to your 21^st Century Management Manual, including free updates, at result-performance-management.com.