Are we planning right?
We all have heard this comment thousands of times, but how does it impact our business? With 33% of all business in the United States failing to reach their 5th year anniversary what is missing? Often companies form with just a dream and some capital, but, without a clear “Strategic Vision” or a “Clear Plan”. Now is the time of year where you company’s strategy should be at the top of your organization’s conversation. Without a clearly defined plan and set of goals, you’ll wander aimlessly throughout the next year with no clear roadmap for where you’re heading. It’s not too late to begin your organization’s strategic plan for 2018.
We at Makoto Flow, Ltd believe in setting up a Hoshin to provide the needed clarity to reach the goals and objectives of your organization. Over the next few weeks we will publish several articles explaining not only the Why, but the What and How of a good Hoshin to help you achieve the goals and objectives your business.
First what is this thing called Hoshin and Hoshin Kanri? A very loose interpretation from Japanese, Hoshin in English means; “setting a direction or setting an objective.” The Kanri translates as “management.” So we can deduce that Hoshin Kanri in English would be of the meaning of managing the direction of our objective. This only makes sense when you think of it. We often tell everyone of our goals and don’t have a solid plan to achieve them. That is called a dream.
Hoshin Kanri is an easy to understand, step-by-step planning, implementation, and review process for managed change and setting clear direction. It truly is a systems approach to the clearly managing the of change in your critical business processes.
So, like many Japanese terms used in business today, the importance is to capture the principle behind it not just the translation. Through the years Hoshin Kanri has been translated different ways into English in an attempt to capture its true value. Let’s exam the benefits of setting a clear Hoshin Kanri for your organization:
· Clear Strategy allows you the ability to foresee and prepare for change. Without this your organization will lose momentum, thus, becoming more reactive rather than proactive. The demands are changing, and we must be able to change as result. With all of these variables that can create turmoil send you to the bottom if you don’t have strategies in place.
· The employee truly need clear vision of what is expected from them. A lack of a strategic plan can result in negative employee morale. People need a clear reason to come to work every day. (besides the obvious need of a paycheck). Without a focused future, a plan, the natural and unavoidable result is that morale falls. With that employee willingness for interaction becomes vague and lifeless. A strategic plan keeps everyone focused on the what and why things are done as well as the importance as well the individual contributes to the success of the company. Allowing them the sense of pride of work.
· It drives Company growth. Succeeding without a plan is possible, it’s called luck. Even if you have been successful thru this luck, you must ask yourself this question: How much more could you have grown or became even more successful if you were better organized?
· It causes you to benchmark and helps you assess your true performance. A strategic plan by requires you to measure and document your performance. This will establish a clear benchmark of where you’ve been, allowing you to adjust your course of action to reach where you are planning to achieve. True documentation of data is a must in your business decision to keep your organization moving forward.
One misunderstood and particularly perceived difficult phase of Hoshin Kanri is in the implementation of a process known as “catch ball”, which is used to gain consensus on the deployment of Hoshin targets and measures, in a team environment known as “Transactional Management”. That will be the topic of the next in the series. We hope you consider Hoshin in the development of your organizational plan moving forward in the years to come.