Alignment means linking the four most important elements of your business, which together create growth and profits: people, customers, strategy, and processes.

Leaders of aligned organizations follow five simple steps toward alignment:
1. They carefully craft and articulate the essence of their business and determine its shared purpose
2. They define a few critical strategic goals and imperatives, and deploy them throughout the organization
3. They tie performance measures and metrics to those goals
4. They link these measures to a system of rewards and recognition
5. They personally review the performance of their people to ensure that goals are met

Source: Labovitz & Rosansky