
We have a strategy. We have goals. Now, let’s just go and “get ‘er done,” right?
It’s happened too often when teams and leaders go off to their respective corners after planning and begin the work to execute and complete their goals. The second this happens, the risk of losing alignment and priority sets in. If everyone moves on to their own focus, the risk of losing sight of the overall picture can be lost. The CEO must maintain focus and alignment with their senior team.
I had a caveat in my last article about strategy. Some frameworks focus on planning (SWOT, PESTLE, 5 Forces), and others look more at deployment. I would place Hoshin Kanri, the Balanced Scorecard, or BSC, and Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs, from Andy Grove (and made more popular by John Doerr and Google) as examples of strategy deployment methodologies.
We’ve all heard and used the phrase, “What gets measured gets done.” Regardless of who the quote is attributed to (and it does not belong to Drucker) and whether it speaks to a lesser attention span in today’s fast-paced world, there is validity to the quote. When something gets enough focus from a team or leader, it tends to improve. It might take a lot more effort than it’s worth, but it has a unified force behind it.
For most companies, what is more important than executing their strategy? To all my CPA friends, I will vehemently disagree if you suggest cash flow, the balance sheet, etc. Those must be overseen and managed but don’t excite an entire company. 🙂 Suppose this significant amount of effort is being put into developing the future path for a company. Isn’t it a simple and necessary step to ensure adherence and performance are being tracked?
This is where deployment and execution tools come in. I’ve been using Balanced Scorecards for nearly twenty years. I appreciate the perspective they offer and the ability to ensure we’re identifying those critical few goals for the upcoming year and reviewing them monthly. I like the simplicity the approach offers and even a tailored approach to your industry (in Healthcare, I’ve encountered the 4P perspectives – Patient, Performance, People, Process) as a slight alteration to the traditional four perspectives from Drs. Kaplan and Norton. Once again, KISS. I prefer keeping the number of goals on a BSC to less than 10 (others prefer 6 or 7). It doesn’t mean any other initiatives can’t be tracked via other methods, but for the organization, it’s critical everyone understands the most important results.
OKRs I haven’t been working with as long, maybe ten years since they were popularized by Google at the turn of the millennium. I like the intention of having a faster cadence with OKRs (quarterly is very typical vs annual), and I see these being more applicable at a functional or department level. Regardless, I still see the Objectives being able to be placed in a BSC to provide the leadership the ability to monitor progress. I’ve worked with companies that use OKRs as the primary deployment method for annualized goals. Either works very well. As with the planning phase, I’d suggest choosing the methodology and approach that feels the best for your company. It could be a hybrid approach. It could be a Power BI dashboard or even an Excel spreadsheet. The critical step is having a clear visual that can be reviewed, shared and discussed amongst leadership and all employees to show the plan and the alignment to the strategy.
And Hoshin Kanri? It is a 7-step process from planning to deployment to execution and reviews. It is a comprehensive process, but not one for the uninitiated. I’ve been a part of three launches of Hoshin Kanri in organizations, and only one was successful. It takes work, planning and alignment, and if there is a valid critique, it might spend too much time on the format and layout of goals. It can confuse some – I’ve had that feedback from many. It almost comes across as too restrictive of a template. What is selected as the goal is more important than how they look on paper.
And once you have the method chosen, ensure you’re tracking the right measurable. At this deployment stage, it is critical (for alignment and organizational awareness) that each goal has a clearly defined target. It could be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI), Key Result (KR), project milestone, or critical outcome.
With the format and results clearly defined, share the progress. Celebrate the accomplishments, and don’t hide from the challenges. This is the time for teams to brainstorm and introduce countermeasures to get back on track. Ensure you’re including a review of company results monthly; make it part of your Business Operating System.