Align. Design. Lead.

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How your organization should be wired to think, decide, and act.

From strategy to execution.

 

Let’s be clear.

Some organizations do suffer from flawed strategies. But more often, we see good strategies break down because of what’s underneath:

  • Misalignment at the top
  • Structures that can’t carry the load
  • Leaders trying to lead through change without the time, tools, or clarity they need

That’s where Align. Design. Lead. TM comes in.

It’s not a process you follow. It’s an approach you take—one that adapts to your starting point. Whether you need all three parts or just one right now, the framework meets you where the pressure is real.

  • ALIGN your senior team—not just around strategy, but how you decide, execute, and lead together
  • DESIGN the structure, roles, and workflows to move from vision to traction
  • LEAD with the adaptability and clarity your organization needs right now

Here’s the part many leaders miss:

In times of uncertainty, the instinct is to add layers—more processes, more rules, more initiatives. But complexity doesn’t need more complexity.

You need elegant simplicity—a way to cut through the noise and focus on what actually enables your organization to function, adapt, and perform.

 

 

Align. Design. Lead. is that kind of simplicity. It’s built from 25+ years of working with organizations at their most critical inflection points—growth, contraction, reinvention, and reset.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll unpack each part of the framework —and how our clients are applying it strategically, selectively, and successfully.

 

Schedule a call or Learn more

 

 

How to Prepare for Growth Even as You Recalibrate

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The Strategic Pullback: Positioning Your Organization for What’s Next

Our shareholders, our boards, and we, as executives, continually focus on growth — bigger markets, expanded teams, new investments. But what happens when the smartest move isn’t pushing forward, but pulling back?

The most effective leaders understand that growth isn’t just about scaling up—it’s about structuring for what comes next. Sometimes, that means making tough decisions now—restructuring teams, streamlining operations, or refocusing priorities—to create the right conditions for future expansion.

 

The Both/And of Smart Growth

Too often, organizations get caught in either/or thinking:

  • Either we grow aggressively or we restructure and slow down.
  • Either we hire more talent or we optimize what we already have.
  • Either we expand into new markets or we strengthen our core business.

The key is to not accept these false choices but instead to think in terms of Both/And:

  • How do we redesign now to accelerate growth next quarter or next year?
  • Where can we streamline today to scale smarter tomorrow?
  • What strategic moves position us for long-term success, not just short-term wins?

Key Considerations for Recalibrating for Growth

If you’re rethinking your structure now to enable future success, consider these essential factors:

  • Talent Realignment: Are your key people in the right roles for where the business is heading? Growth isn’t just about hiring—it’s about ensuring your current team is positioned to drive impact. You shouldn’t be using a chainsaw or mandating that every department must reduce staffing by 10%. Strategically recalibrating means assessing what parts of the organization create the most significant impact and using that to inform decisions.

I worked with a client who had been focused on aggressive hiring after the pandemic to have the staff they needed to serve their customers. The impact of their talent acquisition function was consequential. The next year, the need to staff up decreased substantially. They also faced revenue headwinds. Reducing their talent acquisition staff numbers while growing their regional management staff produced the realignment they needed. The realignment was nuanced.

  • Operational Efficiency: Where can you simplify processes, remove redundancies, or reallocate resources to improve execution without adding complexity? Engage the people closest to the work. A company was looking to achieve around $6mil in savings. Rather than simply having the executive team determine the savings opportunities, they established a process for the entire employee base to submit potential opportunities for savings. Finance led the vetting process for the ideas, their reasonableness, and impact. Rather than $6mil in savings, the company achieved over $20mil.
  • Strategic Focus: Do you need to rethink yours?Recalibrating requires clear prioritization—focusing only on what moves the business forward. But businesses should look beyond just revenue or EBIDTA.  Will an enhanced customer experience be the key?  Will it be creating the infrastructure that was put on the back burner during your last sprint towards aggressive bottom line results?
  • Cultural Alignment: Change—even strategic recalibration—can unsettle teams. Are you effectively communicating why these shifts are happening and how they set the organization up for success? Even the word recalibration can create negative perceptions. Think like the people being impacted by the cultural alignment. How would it feel to be in their shoes?  What questions would it raise?  What concerns would they have? Even senior leadership teams with the best intentions aren’t always good at communicating about change.
  • Financial Positioning: Scaling too fast can create risk. Are you balancing short-term financial discipline with long-term investment in the right growth levers? Consider various scenarios and their implications.

Recalibration is Not a Retreat

If you’re reorganizing, restructuring, or even pulling back in certain areas, don’t mistake it for a retreat. It’s a recalibration. And if done right, it puts you in a position to move faster, execute better, and grow stronger when the time is right.

Your Next Move:

The most effective leaders design for the future while managing the present. If you’re making structural changes now—or considering them—how are you ensuring they set you up for real growth next quarter, next year, and beyond?

We’re working with clients right now who are doing the same. Let’s talk about how to balance today’s realities with tomorrow’s opportunities.

Schedule a conversation to explore how strategic organizational design can fuel your next stage of growth.

Stop Fixing What’s Broken—Start Building What’s Next

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The Future of Your Organization Isn’t in the Repair Shop

Every December, leaders gather around boardroom tables to discuss “what’s not working.” The structure is too slow, the teams aren’t aligned, and change is happening too fast. The solution? Another reorg. But here’s the problem: too many organizations operate like mechanics—constantly patching things up instead of designing something built for the future.

Provocative Point: If your 2025 strategy still revolves around fixing inefficiencies instead of reimagining what’s possible, you’re already behind. Incremental change isn’t enough when the world is shifting at full speed.

Solution: Instead of a “tweak-and-fix” mindset, adopt a “design for scale” approach. Focus on building an organizational structure that’s fluid, adaptable, and driven by purpose—not just efficiency. This means fewer silos, more cross-functional collaboration, and leadership that’s actually empowered to make decisions. Start asking: What structure will help us seize opportunities we haven’t even considered yet?

Building Resilience in Organizational Structures

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Because Fighting Fires Isn’t a Sustainable Strategy

 

Let’s face it: crises are no longer the exception—they’re the rule. As a matter of fact, we should stop treating them like crises. Whether it’s market disruptions, supply chain issues, or your top talent walking out the door, the ability to bounce back is what separates the winners from the also-rans. But here’s the kicker: you can’t build resilience by waiting for disruption to strike. You need to bake it into your organization from the start.

So, how do you create resilient teams and processes that won’t buckle at the first sign of trouble? Hint: It’s not about having a Plan B—it’s about designing your entire structure to pivot on a dime. Think about redundancy, flexibility, and decision-making.

Build redundancy into your teams

No, this doesn’t mean stockpiling talent like canned goods for a rainy day. It’s about cross-training your people so when one person’s out, another can step in without missing a beat. A resilient team doesn’t depend on one rock star—it’s a well-oiled machine that can keep humming, no matter what.

  • Example: Backup leadership roles– Identify and train high potential talent who can step up during a crisis. At a minimum, the head of departments or functions that are strategically critical  should have a designated “second-in-command” who’s familiar with the strategic vision and decision-making process and can step in when needed. There’s a secondary benefit to this, too. The second in command becomes succession ready.
  • Example: Skill-sharing initiatives– Create an internal skill-sharing program where team members regularly teach each other their core responsibilities. This ensures knowledge transfer and reduces the impact of key person dependency.

Design processes that flex, not snap

Rigid processes work until they don’t. Disruption hits, and suddenly, the entire workflow comes to a screeching halt. Instead, create processes that allow for flexibility—ones that can be scaled up, down, or sideways based on real-time needs. Think of your processes like bamboo: strong but bendy.

  • Example: Scalable project management– Adopt agile project management methods, such as sprints or Kanban boards, that allow teams to quickly pivot priorities or reallocate resources as needed without losing momentum.
  • Example: Adaptive resource allocation– Implement a flexible resource allocation system that allows teams to shift budget, personnel, or time toward high-priority projects during times of crisis, without waiting for formal approval cycles. Small organizations do this out of necessity. For example, one of my clients has significant events they need to deliver for during a couple of months each year. They can’t add staff for these events and they are important to their client relationships.  Flexible resourcing allows them to bring all hands-on deck during that cycle while still serving other client needs.
  • Example: Modular workflows– Develop modular workflows that can be quickly adjusted or restructured based on changing conditions, ensuring that only the affected parts of a process need to be altered, rather than the entire system.

Build decision-making power at every level

If your team has to run every decision up the flagpole during a crisis, you’re already toast. Resilient organizations empower employees at all levels to make decisions quickly. Trust your people to act in the best interests of the company—after all, you hired them for a reason, right?

  • Example: Decentralized decision-making– Roll out a decision-rights matrix that clearly outlines what decisions can be made at each level, especially in high-pressure situations. Differentiate the decisions to be made – strategic big bet decisions that are infrequent and significant, cross-functional decisions, and high frequency/low risk decisions that can be delegated. Push down decisions as far as possible while weighing risk and frequency.  This reduces bottlenecks and encourages quicker, more informed decisions.
  • Example: Crisis-response training– Hold scenario-based training sessions where leaders and their teams are tasked with making rapid decisions during simulated disruption.  Provide feedback and make it a fun competition. This builds confidence in decentralized decision-making and improves response times.

Resilience isn’t just about survival. It’s about thriving when everyone else is scrambling. And if you’re not building it into your organizational structure now, well, good luck “winging it” the next time the market goes sideways.

How to Get the C-suite on Board?

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Now is the time to invest in leadership development

Cost control efforts, including layoffs, are increasing across multiple industries. Leadership development initiatives can be an easy target. However, this is often the best time to invest in your organization’s leaders, when even more is going to be asked of them. So, how do you get the c-suite on board?

Some of your CEO’s top areas of focus for 2024 are likely to be: attracting and retaining top talent, continue with digital transformation and drive growth – and, you guessed  – reduce costs at the same time (source:  Conference Board 2024 CEO Outlook Report). And, they need leaders who can support these priorities. 

This opens the door for you to guide the c-suite on how to invest limited resources in leadership development that will be most impactful. How do you get the  C-suite’s crucial support for leadership development?

Frame it up: 2 Questions to ask yourself

Start by framing your conversation to address their biggest concern – positively impacting business results.

What is the business case for your organization?  Thinking like a CEO is critical to winning their support.

  • What are executives most concerned about in 2024? In a nutshell, it’s Growth, Technology, and Talent. If you want to dig deeper, take a look at the 2024 CEO Outlook survey from the Conference Board, and the most recent Fortune/Deloitte CEO Survey Insights

  •  Find out not only what is most critical to your c-suite, but how they are talking about it. Be conversant in your company’s mission, business strategy, KPI’s / OKR’s and financial performance. Have direct discussions with senior leaders about what’s critical to them. Be prepared to provide relevant data (employee engagement, client satisfaction, attrition and talent acquisition, absenteeism, etc.). Business strategy documents, annual reports, and formal communications to leaders and employees are also good sources to prepare for discussions.
  • Create a direct link between your organization’s pain pointsand how the leadership development will help ease it. See more below.

What is the ROI / Impact?  If you have been able to demonstrate a strong ROI of past leadership development initiatives at your organization, that’s gold. If you don’t have that data, you can point to studies from reputable organizations that show a link between leadership development and business performance. Use this kind of data sparingly and targeted to your C-suite’s biggest concerns. This graphic from joshbersin.com provides compelling high-level support:

A diagram of a company Description automatically generated

Or some of these statistics could pique their interest:

Talking with the C-suite

In addition to data and framing it up, positioning your business case is critical. Here are some ways to talk with your c-suite about leadership development.

Alignment:“We need to improve our leaders’ ability to align with the organization on business strategy, goals, and culture.”

  • Alignment needs to be regularly reinforced at all levels of the organization, from the most senior leaders to the most junior employees. For example, innovation is one of our core business imperatives. Leaders at all levels need to create environments on their teams where people will share new ideas and step out of old ways of thinking, Strong leadership development can show them how to do this and apply it in their real work.
  • Better aligned leaders make better decisions. They are also faster at adopting new technology.Our business’s innovative strength will be a direct byproduct of helping our leaders and their teams to better align with our business strategy and goals.
  • Leadership development is best when customizedso that critical skills are taught and practiced in ways that reflect our strategy and values. And I will ensure any development program does that.

Engagement:“We know from our engagement surveys, leaders and managers want the organization to invest in them” (if you don’t have engagement surveys, use some of the statistics discussed above). Opportunity for development is one of the top motivating factors listed in virtually all studies and surveys on engagement.

  • The bottom line for better engaged managers and employees is better performance. Teams that are engaged work more productively; they’re more likely to got the extra mile to achieve organizational goals, and they collaborate across teams more willingly.
  • In our continually changing business environment, leaders are desperately looking to boost their ability to stay on top of their people challenges.
  • Developing our leaders has a trickle-down effect on the teams and employees. They will be better led and therefore more engaged themselves. That results in better retention, lower hiring costs, and increased productivity.
  • Showing our leaders how to build empathy and trustwith their team members builds connection and embeds engagement more deeply in the organization.

Performance:  “When our leaders have their teams better aligned and better engaged, they will perform better.”

  • Our leadership development will emphasize effective communication and collaboration, which leads to better working relationships and less operational friction. That means fewer misunderstandings, mistakes, and wasted time and resources.
  • We also need to improve team and individual accountability. That includes mutual accountability amongst team members and their leaders. When leaders share more accountably with their teams, it drives engagement and performance.
Growth:  “When our leaders are better aligned with our strategy, and have more engaged and productive teams… they will be better able to help grow the business. Their professional growth helps drives team and organizational growth.”
  • Leadership development hones skills like adaptability and continual learning. That helps create an organization that is agile in the face of constant change.
  • Over time it builds muscle-memory for how to shift gears quickly and effectively from one business imperative to a more urgent or critical one.
  • Well-developed leaders are also better at identifying organizational growth opportunities and mitigating risks that threaten that growth.

Of course, you will find language and examples to make this framework more specific to your organization. That will make it resonate more with your senior leaders.

The value of effective leadership development is that it supports and accelerates the business strategy. It helps create a culture of adaptability and innovation. All of which helps your organization stay competitive in relentlessly changing markets.

All of which makes leadership development a wise investment, and not merely a cost.

Contact us for more information on how we can help you build leaders who enhance connection, performance and growth in your business.

The Two Keys to Better Results in 2021

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In these first few weeks of 2021 one thing is abundantly clear – change, disruption and challenge are going to be with us for the foreseeable future. It’s time to move beyond survival mode and figure out how to thrive. Simplicity and focus are key. The organizations and teams that create sustained alignment, keep engagement high and outperform their competition will start 2021 answering two questions:

What is our North Star?
How will we create and maintain strategic clarity?

Without a clear purpose and understanding of what continues to be important in a rapidly changing environment, work becomes fractured, misaligned and frustrating. Recently, McKinsey examined how 30 top companies are preparing for the future. 83% are taking bold moves around their purpose, their North Star. Research by LSA Global shows that strategic clarity accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performance in terms of revenue growth, profitability, customer loyalty, leadership effectiveness and employee engagement. Research also tells us that finding meaning – having purpose, a North Star – is a universal intrinsic motivator.

Answering “What Is Our North Star?” Provides Clear Purpose

For centuries, travelers have navigated by the North Star. No matter the circumstance, it was a constant in the night sky. It is the answer to the questions, “why do we exist?  What is our purpose?” With today’s unpredictability and the need for agility, your North Star defines the constant core that will drive strategy, priorities and decisions. Without a North Star, agility becomes chaos. Decision-making and priority setting are reactive, siloed and lack alignment.
Defining the North Star should start with the executive team but not end there. Share the definition. Ask what resonates and what’s missing. Create a short statement that is understandable, memorable and defines the essence of why the organization exists. If the statement sounds something like “to increase shareholder value,” keep asking “is that really the core of who we are? Is our purpose larger than that?” Test how simple and memorable it is. After broad and intentional communication, ask 10 random people what the North Star is. If it’s not consistent, you have more work to do.

Strategic Clarity Provides the Map

Strategic clarity follows from strategic simplicity. Donald Sull, a global authority on strategy execution, recommends three questions that create simplicity and actionable clarity  out of complex strategies.
  • What are your critical business drivers?
  • What are the 3-5 challenges we need to overcome to succeed in 2021?
  • What are our must-win battles?
I add one more question that I believe is essential in today’s environment:
  • How will we keep ahead of or quickly be responsive to changes that occur?

Answering the first three questions brings clarity to targets and daily choices. Why did we choose these targets and those activities? For example, why is our target 3 % growth instead of 5% growth? Why are we focused on digital transformation? Sure, it’s to stay competitive; but specifically, HOW will it help your organization? What business strategies will it support? Can everyone in the organization explain strategy and how it manifests in their function, and in their role? If not, some of your people may be rowing in the wrong direction.

The final question recognizes that change will remain constant and that as we address the challenges and must-win battles, tactics may need to be altered or changed completely. It tells people we recognize that change will occur and leveraging it (instead of fearing it) is how we succeed.
In 2021 we’ll have our next new normal. My prediction is that many people will still feel like their organization’s goals have little connection to their work because things have shifted… again.
By having a North Star and simplifying your strategy to create clarity, your team will be better aligned and more engaged.

Our Most Read LinkedIn Articles of 2020

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As we all welcome 2021, we thought we’d look back to 2020 and some of our most-read LinkedIn articles.

COVID has taught us that we can and must be able to change rapidly, to transform on the fly if need be. We’ve had no choice but to go more completely digital, transforming our customer, employee, student and supplier experiences. Truly listening with empathy, and being agile became key not just for leaders, but for everyone. Change can’t just be a priority for a few people at the top. It needs to be a priority for everyone. And, honestly, that’s kind of exciting. 

1. 10 𝑻𝒊𝒑𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑯𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒀𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝑻𝒆𝒂𝒎 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒓𝒖𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑬𝒏𝒗𝒊𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕: http://bit.ly/3q8oMg

2. 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑪𝒐𝒗𝒊𝒅 19: http://bit.ly/3qbjpi0

3. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆… 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑾𝒆 𝑵𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒔: http://bit.ly/39uetOF

NextBridge partners with you to create and execute pragmatic, sustainable business solutions. Please let us know how we can help you in 2021.

Am I Dressed for This?

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Much of the country is experiencing record-breaking, bitter cold this winter.  And yet, some weeks, we’ve had snow storms on one day, with bright sunshine and 50 degrees the next.  In a few months, we’ll be experiencing heat and humidity.  The old saying goes ‘if you wait a minute, the weather will change.” As human beings, we readily adapt to these weather changes. We build a wardrobe for whatever the weather in our area brings – hot, cold, rain, snow, sun, etc. 
 
You could apply that old saying to what happens at work these days – wait a minute, and it will change. As I sat yesterday evening in front of the fire, I was thinking about what kind of wardrobe we are building for ourselves at work so that, when change happens, we have what’s needed to adapt. Are we building an athletic wardrobe so that when we need to reach  across silos we are comfortable and able to move easily?  Do we have our creative hat when we need to approach a challenge in a new and unique way?  Do we have our metaphorical heavy coat so we can get results even when things feel blustery? 

Too often we put on armor to protect ourselves from having to adapt and change.  Wouldn’t a wardrobe with a nice pair of shorts help us to be comfortable when things get heated?  Or a well-tailored coat for when we have to face a cold front?  Or a comfy pair of jeans for when we need to be ready to stretch and reach feel so much better?
 
What are you doing to not only broaden your work wardrobe, but to update it for what’s needed in 2019? How about your teams?  Are they stuck in a snowbank?

Improve Your Global Mindset and Strategic Thinking

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Recently I had the pleasure of talking with a Danish company at their annual meeting in Dubai. It reminded me that some of the most instructive client relationships I have (especially the long-term ones) are those that provide me with a global perspective. It also reminded me of this newsletter article I wrote several years ago…

Some of you may have heard the story of the truck stuck under the bridge and the dilemma of how to get it unstuck. If you don’t know it, I’ll share it at the end of this post.

I thought about that story at a recent professional meeting where the topic was developing a global mindset. All of the speakers had interesting perspectives to share and one in particular made a point that was particularly thought-provoking. His company’s research had shown that experiencing another culture had a significant impact on one’s strategic thinking. He further explained that “experiencing” a culture didn’t mean going there on vacation for a week or two.

It is immersive, longer-term experiences like ex pat assignments or managing global teams where you had to travel to work within their culture. The speaker noted that these assignments have this profound impact because they change your perspectives on the world, how it is organized and how it functions. These different perspectives allow you to be more nuanced in your thinking about how different parts of a whole interact, the variables that impact it, and the implications.

How, then, can someone stretch their perceptions and perspectives and develop their strategic thinking when working globally isn’t a possibility?

Seek out Projects That Involve Global Teams.  It’s not the same as working overseas, but working on projects with global teams is a great start. It will expose you to different ways of thinking, conversing, and decision-making. Regardless of your role, really listen to others.

Regularly interact with people in a different function or area of the company. Marketers and engineers don’t think alike. Operations folks think differently from researchers. See how someone different from you may be experiencing the same organization, issues, etc.

Interact with those outside your industry.  For years, benchmarking was the buzzword when you wanted to get a more strategic perspective and to understand the industry more broadly. The problem is that it is a closed-system approach. Biotechs benchmark other biotechs. Car manufacturers benchmark other car manufacturers. The perspective of someone in a totally different industry about your issue or situation will cause you to think about the variables and interactions more broadly, more strategically. It helps you see the forest for the trees. One of the things that made Steve Jobs so successful at product design was that he thought about products and perspectives he gained from things like digital animation architecture.

Hire people who are different from you. I hesitate to say hire for diversity because too often that is narrowly defined. In addition to the more commonly referenced and important diversity categories, we can hire for diversity of thought, experiences, and education. Also, the US has new populations from other cultures within the country that can be brought onto teams. So, if working globally isn’t possible, the US still has a rich population of people to choose from. Then, regularly ask those you’ve hired for perspective and input on the business issues you are working to address.

Thinking about your daily business interactions expansively will help you develop the broader perspective needed to think more strategically.

So, the story about the truck stuck under the bridge goes like this…  A truck was stuck under a bridge, backing up traffic. The police, fire and tow truck drivers were trying to figure out how to get it out, but they had no workable solution.  A little boy walked up and asked what was going on. The police officer explained the dilemma. The little boy looked at him and said. “Let the air out of the tires.”

Among other things, the story illustrates how important it is to look for and value unique perspectives, especially those outside your typical orbit. Something a more global perspective can provide us.

Growth by Design

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I was having a conversation with a CEO earlier this week. The business is very successful and healthy. But like most CEO’s, he is concerned with growth and what’s next for his company. During our conversation, we talked about taking a step back, what I sometimes call taking in the view from the balcony. This view allows you to see how the different aspects of the business and organization are working together (or against each other) to achieve today’s results. And begs the question… how effectively will our current structure and processes spur that next phase of growth? Taking this view helps you to create growth by design, making it easier to align and integrate purposefully. And it prepares the organization to take that next step.

Growth by Design is our framework for helping clients build an organization that can propel them to the next level. It has three core components.

  • It’s starts with compelling clarity, ensuring alignment of the vision, mission, goals and culture. Every leader and every employee should know at all times exactly what their priorities are and how they fit with the strategy and goals of the organization. A how they both serve the mission.
  • Second, you need to leverage the critical drivers – understanding and instilling the growth imperative, making change agility part of your company’s DNA, and ensuring you have the talent to innovate and execute.
  • Third, the organization needs to build adaptive structures and processes– both business and human resources/talent processes and structures — that meet today’s needs but also prepare the organization for what’s next.

Asking the right questions and finding the best answers will help even the most challenged CEOs and senior teams cut through the fog. Building a compelling strategy for what lies ahead… begins by design.