Page 255 - Performance Leadership

244 • Part IV Implementing the Performance Leadership Framework

turn that the debate on social issues takes here is that the social dimen-
sion is not about environmental issues and people’s rights anymore as a
boundary condition or even as a competitive differentiator, but about the
fundamental core business model: collaborating with stakeholders to get
something done, to innovate, to add value for the customer, to be prof-
itable in the first place. The values dimension guides us in picking the
right partners and other stakeholders.
The idea of the performance network as a means to optimize the
performance of the organization enables organizational alignment.
Alignment is the extent to which the self, the self-perception, and the
external perception of the organization match. When you think about
your business model in terms of a network of stakeholders, the circle
of control and influence that you have immediately becomes bigger. A
large part of what used to be “external perception,” as organizations tra-
ditionally focused on their own performance optimization, now
becomes “self-perception” as well.
The contributions of the stakeholders are part of the organization
and its strategies too. When the relationships between various stake-
holders become deeper and grow from a transactional to an added-
value relationship or even a joint relationship, where appropriate of
course, the self and the self-perception of the network align as well. We
are discussing not only the objectives themselves, but also what moti-
vates us in achieving them, what we expect of ourselves and of our
stakeholders, what stakeholders can achieve for us, and what we can
achieve for our stakeholders. This in the end leads to trust. Trans-
parency is the major driver in achieving that alignment.
Alignment doesn’t happen by itself. Organizations that realize they are
part of a performance network and see the interdependency between the
various stakeholders typically have relationship managers in place. Rela-
tionship managers, not procurement officers or account managers, are
responsible for the overall relationship with a certain group of stakeholders.
Large organizations often depend heavily on a few IT suppliers, if IT serv-
ices are outsourced. Or they depend heavily on a financial shared serv-
ices center. Or they cannot manufacture products without tight
integration with a few business partners that deliver preassembled parts.
It is the task of the relationship manager to make the relationship
and the collaboration successful. The relationship manager needs to