achieving alignment

getting it together

Edinburgh’s hugely compelling circus has now been packed away for another year, although it’s much more than simply rolling up one stripy Big Top.

Over 25 days, the city turned into the biggest Arts marketplace, welcoming 4,232 shows from 77 countries who undertook 61,277 performances across 306 separate venues.

Attracting international artists, audiences, producers, promotors, the Edinburgh Fringe has deservedly evolved into one of the world’s largest and most significant cultural events. It’s an event that dominates the city for an entire month, doubling its population, selling 2.8m tickets and generating an estimated £300m+ to the city’s economy.

It’s an event unlike any other, in terms of artist's opportunity. Richard Gadd’s statement that ‘’the Fringe is the only place where someone can arrive with an idea and leave with a career’’ can still ring true.

But today it’s totally unrealistic to simply view it as 'an event’. It has grown up into an eco-system, involving a huge number of stakeholders, each with different interests, responsibilities and independent measures of success.

Whilst the CEO of the Festival Fringe Society Tony Lankester, acknowledges there are many divergent opinions, he positively states; "what we all agree on is the need to keep the Fringe affordable for artists, venues and audiences – protecting its reputation as a global marketplace.”

As it looks ahead to its 80th Anniversary next year, one of the biggest tasks for those involved, is to find the necessary alignment to retain the festival as an international Arts icon, whilst managing the realities of increasing costs, competing priorities and genuine inclusion and opportunity for all.

A good starting point would be to clarify a shared purpose and identity for the Fringe – one that sits above the independent ambitions and needs of the many individuals, organisations and bodies involved. One that has a shared focus of serving current and future audiences, continuing to progress both Art and artists whilst offering opportunities to both the wider industry and the city itself.

This will require the festival’s leaders to clarify a shared view of what the Fringe should be at a high enough level to engage all stakeholders, but with enough clarity that it can be tangibly delivered in ways that enable them to address their individual needs.

The key priority stakeholder must be the audience, closely followed by the artists who entertain them, all hosted by the various tiers of venue operators with supporting producers and promotors, plus an entire hospitality industry that feeds and houses them all, alongside the many letting agencies. Whilst the Scottish Government enjoys the cultural prestige, the real key stakeholder is the city itself and of course its 500,000 residents.

Decisions made by stakeholders may well be individually rational, yet without alignment they might each contribute to an increasingly incoherent outcome, leading to conflicting priorities, unnecessary tension between commercial and cultural objectives, pressure on the overall infrastructure and an alienation of both artists and audiences.

But let’s be clear. Seeking alignment should never be about seeking control. If the Fringe is to continually evolve in response to changes in the world around it, all those involved need to have an aligned view and belief in who we are, what we do and why we do it, creating a shared Fringe identity and adopting a shared Fringe approach.

Establishing this clarity can then enable shared objectives, clearer ownership and responsibilities, collaborative ways of working and collective measures of success, that can address the individual needs of those involved and progress the Fringe more cohesively and consistently toward what it wants to be.

Without alignment, is there a risk?

The danger with a lack of alignment is rarely a sudden dramatic failure, as renewed enthusiasm, ongoing changes and individual ambition for any project or event, consistently refresh the visible pace and energy involved and deliver success.

The bigger but quieter risk of non-alignment is incremental erosion. This often means that everything continues to appear well and indeed successful on the outside, whilst under the surface the eco-system’s sustainability is increasingly under threat.

For any Arts organisation or collective Arts event like the Fringe, without alignment being prioritised by Leaders and more fully addressed, risks include infrastructures that struggle to keep pace, inaccessible and prohibitive costs to both audience and artists and cultural considerations being outweighed by commercial interests.

In comparison, those who seek out and invest the time and energy to achieve alignment, are more likely to work cohesively and efficiently, aligning their priorities, using their individual strengths in more supportive, collective ways and turning possibly well-meaning, but scattered efforts into a unified force.

How creating balance creates alignment

When we work with Leaders and Teams, we start by creating a simple balance framework against which alignment can be developed and improved. This framework defines the shared identity and purpose of the business, by articulating simply and clearly who they are, what they do and why they do it.

As part of this, we work with Leaders to ensure that at the most Senior level, they are clear on what they want to achieve and how they want to lead, so when key stakeholders are involved in the discussions, this shared direction and aligned approach can be used to support the engagement and decision making on how to make things happen.

We’ve identified 4 key areas of alignment that we focus on with clients:

Strategic alignment
Strategic alignment ensures all organisational activities directly support the vision or ambition of the business. We use proven tools and methodologies to identify ‘what matters most’ from a commercial, customer, operational and development perspective. Without strategic alignment, teams can pursue conflicting priorities that waste resources and create internal friction.

Operational alignment
Operational alignment means that all activity, initiatives and ad-hoc projects directly support the aims of the business. How an organisation develops it systems, technology and processes all contribute to operational alignment as does how it structures its business and manages its people. A big part of what we do, often involves helping leaders and their teams get clarity and alignment on primary roles and responsibilities to support clear lines of ownership, accountability and best use of strengths.

Cultural alignment
Cultural alignment creates shared values and behaviours. These are anchored in ‘who we are and what we do’ and alignment comes from Leaders being clear on what this means in practise, demonstrating and role-playing what good looks like consistently and equipping and enabling teams to develop the skills they need to do the same. We spend a lot of time helping leadership teams think about and improve ‘how they show up’ so that an aligned leadership approach can evolve across the business and showcase ‘the way we do things here’.

Communication alignment
Communication alignment is often one of the hardest, but most important areas. Having clarity on who we are, what we do and why we do it and articulating this consistently is key. We work with leaders to establish clear channels and consistent messaging including regular updates, sharing stories that reinforce ‘what good looks like’ and accessible information that people can both learn from and contribute to. Communication alignment prevents misunderstandings, reduces duplicate efforts, and ensures that important information reaches the right people at the right time.

Questions for consideration
Are you confident that everyone in your organisation shares the same definition and belief in who you are, what you do and why you do it? Does your organisation feel aligned strategically, operationally, culturally and across all communication channels? If not and you’d like help or just an informal chat with any of the above areas, give us a call.