Direction, Alignment, Commitment: Achieving Better Results Through Leadership, First Edition. Cynthia D. McCauley
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duplicating effort, or having important work fall through the cracks.
COMMITMENT is mutual responsibility for the group. In groups with strong commitment, members feel responsible for the success and well-being of the group, and know that other group members feel the same. They trust one another and will stick with the group through difficult times. In groups with weak commitment, members put their own interests ahead of the group’s interests and contribute to the group only when it is easy to do so or when they have something to gain.
DAC LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK
Assessing the levels of DAC in your group and then examining potential contributing factors can help you diagnose what is not working in your current leadership process. It can help you see where you need to focus improvement efforts, and you can begin to explore ways of changing the group’s leadership process so that it produces stronger DAC.
This book describes a three-step process for diagnosing DAC issues in groups:
1. Assess current levels of direction, alignment, and commitment in the group.
2. Look for factors contributing to low levels of direction, alignment, or commitment.
3. Identify changes that could improve direction, alignment, or commitment.
Before starting the diagnosis, here are a couple of important points to keep in mind:
• Although this three-step process asks you to examine direction, alignment, and commitment as independent outcomes, these leadership outcomes are interrelated. For example, having a widely agreed upon direction can enhance commitment to the group. Or, having group members strongly committed to the group can make alignment easier to achieve. While groups do find it useful to examine each outcome on its own, efforts to improve one outcome often have a spillover effect that impacts the other outcomes in positive ways.
• This process doesn’t lead to an answer to your leadership problem; it doesn’t point to a specific solution that will enhance direction or alignment or commitment. There are many possible solutions. What will work in one particular group depends on the individuals in the group, the group’s work, and the larger context in which the group operates. However, careful diagnosis is an important and necessary starting point in resolving a leadership problem—one that increases your chances of investing in changes that will make a difference.
Not all group performance problems are DAC problems. Groups encounter other problems that keep them from achieving desired results, like unexpected changes in the external environment, unsound business practices, or limited resources. In these instances, strengthening DAC likely will not improve group performance. DAC is a determinant of group performance, but not the only determinant.
| A DAC PROBLEM IMPACTING GROUP RESULTS | OTHER FACTORS IMPACTING GROUP RESULTS |
| Two years after starting a nonprofit organization, founding members cannot agree on the organization’s top priorities, making it difficult to attract financial support (direction problem). | A nonprofit organization has clear priorities, but a more established and visible organization takes on similar priorities and gains a larger share of funder resources (unexpected competitor problem). |
| Individuals on a product enhancement team don’t coordinate their work well, resulting in rework and delays in updating the product (alignment problem). | An updated product is launched on time, but sales do not meet expectations because consumers see little added value in the new features (market research problem). |
| Task force members are more interested in using the forum to advance their personal agendas than in helping the group succeed, resulting in a set of recommendations that don’t address some of the core problems they were asked to resolve (commitment problem). | Because task force members do not have all the expertise needed, they cannot successfully resolve the complex issue they were charged with (talent problem). |
STEP 1:
ASSESS CURRENT LEVELS OF DIRECTION, ALIGNMENT, AND COMMITMENT IN THE GROUP
Let’s start by examining three groups struggling with DAC outcomes.
The board of a state-focused foundation whose mission is to improve the health of its underprivileged citizens is creating a new five-year strategic plan. As the board evaluates the impact of the foundation’s grants over the last five years, several board members express concerns that the foundation might be headed in the wrong direction. While some of the individual programs the foundation funds have resulted in impressive successes, the board hasn’t seen enough improvement on overall health indicators for the underprivileged. Every board member supports the foundation’s mission, and while the board feels good about what the foundation has achieved across the state, they wonder why the results don’t reflect greater impact. Does the foundation’s overall direction need to change radically to get the results they hope for? Some members seem eager to embrace a new direction; others are feeling the need to be more cautious.
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