The conventional view is that strategy is the CEO’s responsibility with detailed input from the board or executive committee.  This approach to strategy is high risk in today’s fluid and demanding business environment.

In a recent interview at PEX week in Orlando, i-nexus Founder and Product Visionary, Paul Docherty spoke about the benefits of Hoshin planning for organizations and some of the pitfalls to overcome.

Over the past year, we’ve noted that a large number of existing and prospective customers are adopting Hoshin Kanri to underpin their strategic planning and implementation processes. In a meeting this week with the VP of Strategy in a large Healthcare company, I realized the key factor driving this interest in Hoshin.

One of the areas that I learned from a good mentor earlier in my career is the fundamental distinction between activity and outcomes. In order for our daily activities to fully support our strategic intent, this distinction needs to be clear.

A useful way of looking at the quality and relevance of a strategy is to view that strategy as having a life. I suggest that one of the best ways of judging anything’s health is whether it’s alive. Should have been a Doctor! 

In contrast with established processes in more traditional business functions (finance, logistics, HR etc), the processes surrounding transformation initiatives are immature. This relative immaturity is compounded by the fluidity inherent in change and transformation processes.  

While thinking of New Year's resolutions, it struck me that change and change management shares some similarities.I'm old enough to know not to commit to certain resolutions as they won't last into February. This realization encapsulates the fundamental difference between business transformation and change management.   

In the past year, we've noticed an increase in both interest and activity around transformation. What has often historically been the remit of HR now seems to emerging as a mainstream business issue driven from the very top. 

I've mentioned before that data shows most companies essentially waste the efforts of one full Black Belt for every ten that they train because of all the non-value-add administrative work the Belts have to do. It seems ironic that this waste should happen in companies that working to improve other areas of their business.

Perhaps one of the least-fair demands put on executives today is the expectation that they should be talented fortune tellers. They should be able to anticipate customer wants and needs. They should be able to predict business conditions a year or more out into the future, even with the unstable economies found on every continent.