Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily

Lot of time and efforts get spent on strategy planning. 

Strategy sessions usually get organised away from workplace (Gemba). They often get glorified with team events, water sports, outdoor games around campfire, treasure hunts and so on. They give stylish titles to it. "Off-site", some say proudly after attending it.

Thinking that the 'so-motivated' lot might willingly accept appraisals, they try to manage by objectives (MBO). HRD managers (read 'people' managers) incorporate numbers into periodic (most often 'annual') performance appraisal systems. Some slogans complimentary to the initiative get hung on wall.

Only after failing miserably they realize that execution of strategy is much more than quarter-on-quarter (qoq) or year-on-year (yoy) appraisals or reviews. It goes beyond dusting the displayed-slogans periodically.

It's about eating-drinking-breathing the strategy announcements and talks in terms of actions. It's not merely about dreaming the distant vision. It's about living the dreams daily. 

Going beyond the "bird's-eye view" it's also about "worm's-eye view" at grass-root level (as Mohamaad Yunus creator of the Grameen Bank says about microfinance).

It's about management-OF-strategy, management-OF-objectives (MOO) or rather strategy deployment (Hoshin-Kanri) process. 

If MBO is equivalent to throwing (goal) balls over blind-walls among layers (hierarchies) and functions then MOO is equivalent to coaching to manufacture the balls (i. e. evolve goals) as also helping to catch them daily at tactical levels. 

MOO is like giving as much importance to single runs as much, say, a cricket match gives to a 'Six' on the first ball of the first over. It's about daily (Nichijo) management (Kanri) of strategy or of the policy (Hoshin-Kanri) with a sense of urgency. 

It's about recognizing heroes for their improvement efforts to overcome daily hurdles while playing for mini-goals as a subset of the strategic goals. It's about the culture of looking for as well as creating such heroes daily across the customer-supplier chain. 

Post such recognition, studying¹ of 'what went right' or 'what went wrong' as the case may be rather than mere review of the 'runs' taken for goal-making process itself is a daily affair. It's an on-going 'study' and enablement by corresponding on-going adjustments to the allocation of resources as per dynamic needs of business environment rather than doing it as 'qoq' or 'yoy' performance reviews. 

If formulating strategy is important then formulating strategy-to-execute it is more important characteristic of the MOO approach. 

Like winning a match; sales, other numbers, growth goals, etc. then get achieved as a bye-product resultant of leading and managing the above process intelligently!

¹ Called as hansei: a critical step in any process: the “check” phase of the famous “Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle that Japanese business people use to govern any activity.

Also read a few relevant blog-posts hereunder: 

Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Comprehensive-Strategic-Audits
Will It Work Here?
Can-changing-thoughts-change-nation?
In-big-problem-wear-hats-to-solve-it
Ridiculous Poison-culture versus Maverick Kaizen-culture
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
IQ-EQ-or-SQ: What-is-more-important
Talent-Is-Latent: Enable It!
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Will It Work Here?
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Does recognition really matter
Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
ABCD of India Shining
Do You Ask Right Questions?
Am I 'Short-sighted' or 'Long-sighted'?