Strategic alignment in SMEs: a major challenge (#1/3)
- Olivier Forlini
- Jan 15
- 4 min read
Introduction to the concept of alignment within SMEs/mid-sized companies and the resulting managerial challenges (#1/3)
In SMEs and mid-sized companies, growth difficulties do not only come from the market.
They stem from a more silent problem: a lack of internal alignment, which is strongly felt externally.
1. The role of the CEO and the Executive Committee : to clarify the vision, embody it and arbitrate it without ambiguity.
2. The role of middle management : to translate the vision into concrete priorities (or to distort it).
3. Operational alignment : bringing the vision to life in daily decisions and customer experience.
A simple observation is repeated in 80% of the SMEs/mid-sized companies that I advise:
"The vision is good, but the organization is not pulling in the same direction."
In SMEs and mid-sized companies with 50 to 5,000 employees, the quality of vision guarantees nothing.
What truly determines the alignment of the organization is the ability of the leader — and their management committee — to articulate, embody, and translate this vision into daily decisions .
Most leaders have a solid vision. Few manage to bring it to life throughout the entire company.
For what ?
Because between the CEO's vision and operational reality, there is a critical space where everything can be decided... or lost.
1. The role of the leader: to clarify, embody, and arbitrate
1.1 Clarify: the vision must be short, explicit and understandable.
SME/mid-sized company leaders often have an intuitive vision, especially when they are founders. However, what is clear to them is not necessarily clear to their teams.
An operational vision must answer three questions:
Which direction are we going in?
What do we want to become in 3 to 5 years?
How do we win against the competition?
An effective vision fits on one page , not 40 slides.
🔎 Example – Henaff (~300 employees)
The refocusing on “quality + territorial responsibility” has made it possible to align production, purchasing, distribution and communication on the same course.
1.2 Embodying: the CEO must be the primary driver of consistency
A vision only truly exists if the leader:
makes decisions consistent with what it announces
reacts in a predictable way,
embodies the priorities,
assumes responsibility for the arbitrations.
Teams don't follow what the leader says , they follow what he does .
🔎 Example – Babolat (~500 employees)
The strategic refocusing on innovation and performance was credible because it was immediately reflected in R&D decisions, partnerships and communication.
1.3 Arbitrating: the essential role of the leader is not to decide, but to clarify priorities
One of the major sources of poor alignment in SMEs/mid-sized companies: everything seems to be a priority.
However, an effective leader:
Slice, simplify, eliminate peripheral projects
identifies 2 or 3 fights per year, not 12.
🔎 Example – Manitou (~4,400 employees)
The strategic refocusing on three axes (innovation, international, industrial performance) has made it possible to reduce project dispersion and to align BU, factories and sales.
2. The role of the Executive Committee: amplifying influence or a breeding ground for contradictions?
The true coherence of an organization lies not in the CEO's discourse, but in the collective music of the executive committee .
In 70% of the SMEs/mid-sized companies we analyze, the executive committee is not aligned.
Each person is pushing their own professional agenda:
marketing → image,
commercial → volume,
finance → margin,
industrials → costs,
HR → structure,
digital → projects…
Without a common framework, this produces:
inconsistent arbitrations,
conflicting messages to the teams,
different priorities depending on the department.
3. How a truly aligned executive committee works
3.1 All members speak about the future in the same way
Same argument regarding:
the strategy,
the priorities,
difficult choices
non-priorities.
If a manager hears 5 versions of the vision, there is no vision.
3.2 The decisions are clear, visible, and accepted.
A good executive committee:
slice quickly,
documents its decisions,
communicate them unambiguously.
🔎 Example – Socomec (~3,600 employees)
Strategic trade-offs (innovation + energy transition) are made explicit and formalized, which reduces operational dispersion.
3.3 The Executive Committee manages a single priority system
A misaligned executive committee creates several “companies within the company”.
An aligned executive committee:
defines three cross-cutting priorities,
synchronizes its KPIs,
harmonizes its messages,
establishes a clear pace of progress.
It is these priorities, repeated and embodied by all, that create real alignment.
4. Best practices for strengthening CEO-Executive Committee alignment
1) Formalize the vision in 1 page
Include :
ambition,
positioning,
3 priorities,
trade-offs.
2) Organize a monthly Codir alignment ritual
Goals :
check the priorities,
to standardize the messages,
managing tensions between professions.
3) Evaluate the consistency of the decisions
Each arbitration must meet three criteria:
contributes to the vision,
is understandable by the teams
does not create inter-professional contradictions.
4) Align KPIs and resources
If the KPIs do not reflect the vision, the organization will follow the KPIs — not the vision.
5) Measure appropriation every 12 months
Use a simple diagnostic: understanding, embodiment, perceived coherence.
Conclusion
Organizational alignment does not begin at the level of the organization. It begins at the top of the organization .
When the CEO clarifies the vision, truly embodies it, and the Executive Committee disseminates directives:
faster,
more readable,
more attractive
more efficient in execution.
The role of the leader is therefore not only to define a strategy, but to create a coherent system that makes this strategy executable.
This item is a GTM NEXUS 360® production
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