Organizational Congruence Is Your Link to Greatness

Developing a great purpose is essential. Building a great culture is a necessity. Attracting and retaining great people while building a pipeline of educated leaders and managers is a must. Yet without all three elements in agreement, harmony and congruence, the organization will be unable to attain truly great results.

Why is congruence so important? There are five overwhelming benefits of organizational congruence. First, congruence is strategic. Congruent companies build focused, long-term foundations for success. All systems, processes and structures are well-conceived and thoroughly aligned to achieve great results. Second, congruence simplifies. Within a congruent workplace, all actions are aligned to achieve great results. Anything that does not align is ignored. Therefore decisions are made faster, problems solved sooner, and productivity surpasses companies that are not congruent. Third, congruence reinforces the greater purpose.
When everyone and everything is aligned toward common goals, the power of the alignment builds more momentum toward and reinforces your compelling corporate purpose. Fourth, congruence strengthens the culture. As the environment is centered on a common purpose and successes are celebrated, the culture magnifies, reengages and energizes itself. Fifth, congruence attracts and retains great people. When given the opportunity to join and excel within a congruent organization, great people will tell other great people who will then ask them to join which in turn retains great people who want to be around other great people!

Congruence ultimately leads to competitive advantage. When properly aligned, your purpose, culture and people combined deliver a competitive advantage that is only sustainable through educating all employees on the cycle of congruence. 

The Cycle of Congruence
My son recently lost his fourth tooth, one of his upper front teeth. Not long afterwards, we had one of our favorite meals that included corn on the cob. Needless to say, he had a tough time biting into the cob.

Now, what does eating corn on the cob have to do with organizational congruence? Whenever I eat (and I love to eat), I seldom think about what it takes to grow, transport and deliver the food to a grocery store. But while watching my son attempting to eat corn on the cob, it dawned on me that corn farmers live within the cycle of congruence. To successfully grow a corn crop, a farmer must envision the final product and his ultimate reason for growing it (purpose). With the purpose clearly in mind, he plans and develops the right environments for maximum results (culture) from developing the foundations for success (structure and systems for planting, watering, tending), determining his approach (style), and how he is to monitor and measure progress toward a great crop (scorecard).

Based upon his purpose and culture, he can then build the right team (people) to join the journey to ultimately reach his purpose. These people must be educated on how to achieve the purpose, but organized and trained for their specific roles and responsibilities. When an organization lives within the cycle of congruence, the key elements of the cycle (purpose, culture and people) perpetually reinforce, refine, redirect and realign themselves to one another in a progressive and systematic way. All systems, processes and initiatives propel your company in a common direction, toward a common good.

Wherever organizational congruence lives, there are ultimately fewer roadblocks to success, greater resolve to achieve, and a self-correcting network that quickly redirects any out of sync or non-essential energy, effort, and resources back toward its purpose. 

Putting It All Together
Management excellence exists when great people are educated on how to successfully supervise others to achieve specific goals. Leadership excellence exists when great people are educated on how to be a positive influence toward a common good. Corporate excellence exists when a great purpose is congruent with and supported by a great culture that is lived every day by great people.

This delicate balance of purpose, culture and people, of having a positive influence toward a common good while simultaneously having direct supervision over specific goals, can only be attained through a systematic, intentional and coordinated effort to educate and prepare the entire management team on the principles of achieving great results.

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Patrick B. Ropella
Chairman & CEO, Ropella
Tel: (850) 983-4777
Web: www.Ropella.com

Patrick Ropella is Chairman & CEO of the Ropella Group an international Executive Search, Leadership Transformation, and Corporate Consulting firm. He authored the book and web-based training program, The Right Hire – Mastering the Art of SMART Talent Management, and has seen his content featured in many trade magazines, business publications, and industry journals. Patrick regularly speaks at webinars, career fairs, and conferences.