Key Points

• Hoshin Kanri is one of the best ways to get an entire organization moving in the same direction.
• There is a definite benefit to employee morale and the bottom line with Hoshin Kanri.
• Utilizing Hoshin Kanri to translate vision into reality is easier than most organizations think.

As the end of the year approaches, it won’t come as any surprise to learn that businesses all over the world are donating lots of time to strategic planning for the next year. These plans are part of critical efforts, especially in a volatile economy, to look at how to break through any ceilings that might be standing in the way of additional profits.

It should go without saying that countless hours are being put into meetings, discussions, and more meetings, to try and come up with comprehensive strategies to best allocate the limited resources, financial or otherwise, that every company has available. It’s for this reason that tools and tactics like Hoshin Kanri have become so valuable.

What Is Hoshin Kanri?

Better known as “policy management” in simplistic terms, Hoshin Kanri is a Japanese-based practical planning approach that has been utilized as a way to help companies take their big dreams and use step-by-step actions to convert them into reality. To do so, Hoshin Kanri works to ensure that everyone, no matter what team they are on internally, is all moving in the right direction and toward the same goal.

Hoshin Kanri got its start with names like Toyota in the 1960s, but it can be utilized by any company, large or small, that wants to stay focused on the future without getting lost in deep details. Ultimately, at its core, Hoshin Kanri is all about taking long-term visions and breaking them down into yearly plans and even daily tasks that get the job done.

Unlike more traditional top-down approaches, Hoshin Kanri is focused on creating a real dialogue and conversation between teams, no matter their title or level. Instead of an organization that just issues directives from the metaphorical top floor, this method creates an opening for everyone to contribute to shaping the objectives and understanding how to implement future planning.

The hope is that by utilizing Hoshin Kanri, organizations are creating an environment where goals are arguably ambitious, but also achievable because they include insights from those who are actually doing the day-to-day work to deliver results.

Hoshin Kanri Can Help Translate Vision to Reality

When you consider the work of trying to convert a vision into a reality, it’s tough, it’s almost as if you have a great recipe that you know everyone is going to enjoy, but you don’t know how to cook it.

This is basically the same as saying that Hoshin Kanri is the perfect partner that can break down a vision into doable parts so that a team can act in this direction without any confusion. It works well because it emphasizes employees being aligned, and more specifically, works to ensure that any big picture ideas coming out of the C-Suite, mostly from the CEO, land right on the front lines and into the laps of the teams that are actually doing the work to implement these visions and make them real.

It’s for this reason that incorporating Hoshin Kanri into your business can result in a company that isn’t just dreaming, but also delivering. Companies like HP have utilized Hoshin Kanri with great success, and it has helped them launch products faster by directly connecting strategy to execution.

Best of all, Hoshin Kanri plays very nicely with modern tools, like digital dashboards, as digital transformations continue to take place all over the corporate world. Beyond digital implementation, what really makes HK work is its focus on feedback as well as the bridge between inspiration and implementation. The hope with any HK rollout internally is that it creates a flow and process where vision becomes habit.

Understanding the Challenges in Translating Vision to Reality

There is no question that every company wants to have a strong vision, and having one is very exciting, but it can also mean that trying to get it up and running can mean that teams are all of a sudden running in different directions. Let’s say the vision is to grow sales by as much as 20% in the first half of the year, which sounds great, but without clear steps, it’s just another slide in a PowerPoint presentation.

Frustration, missed deadlines, and other things like this are just some of the challenges that can create bottlenecks and annoyances among entire departments. The problem is that this is an all too common occurrence, and the problem itself stems from disconnecting planning. In other words, leaders are setting or have set the vision, but middle managers and those on the frontline don’t see how there is a connection between their work and the vision itself.

The good news is that Hoshin Kanri is designed to help shine a bright spotlight on these gaps, so that everyone understands how to take an idea and make it actionable. By identifying what hurdles exist, you can start checking off each box with a plan that involves everyone.

How Hoshin Kanri Translates Vision to Reality

Setting a Clear True North

The first step in understanding how Hoshin Kanri can translate vision to reality is by understanding that it’s going to help set a clear true north. Defining this “true north” is, in many cases, simple, and it’s a statement that combines the mission of your organization and a long-term vision.

This might culminate in something like “becoming the go-to local shop for sustainable goods in five years” or “becoming the first electric vehicle maker to go 700 miles on a charge.” This true north is the anchor of everything you will do from here on out, and it gives every member of the team a shared direction that’s digestible enough that it’s hard to forget.

Why are you starting with setting a clear true north? The answer is easy, as any instance of a fuzzy vision can make all of your efforts feel unscattered, but a clear one can align 80% plus of your activities toward growth. Success looks and sounds like teams mentioning this in meetings. It’s a motivator, and a big dream to be sure, but one that feels close without feeling overwhelming.

Cascading Breakthrough Objectives

The next step toward translating HK vision into reality starts with cascading breakthrough objectives. This starts by breaking up your true north into a smaller number of “breakthrough” goals, potentially 3-5 of them, to keep things simple, but it might sound like “like three new eco-friendly products” to keep with your goal of being the premier local shop for sustainable goods.

These goals are then broken up into individual goals, so that the vision remains concrete, but everyone has an opportunity to see how their work is contributing. If you don’t cascade the goals down, you could wind up in a situation where isolated goals are missing the mark, while linked goals are going to boost the commitment of each team and the individual on that team.

Developing and Deploying Annual Goals

Using the famous “catchball” method that is a staple of Hoshin Kanri, you can turn breakthroughs into yearly targets. By using the catchball method, leaders can propose goals and work, while teams provide feedback and refine the goals, like increasing foot traffic by 15% but doing so based on the input from the workers at a store.

This means that goals are being deployed already with buy-in at the frontline level, which improves morale, and it’s clear who the owners are of implementing these goals. This is collaborative planning at its finest.

As for why catchball is so effective, it’s going to show that a one-way plan is going to flop, while the back-and-forth planning is going to build real ownership and immediately stop the constant need for revision. Success is going to look like a smooth rollout and teams hitting around 80% of their target timeline dates because they are invested in the work.

Reviewing and Adjusting for Reality

One of the most vital and important aspects of Hoshin Kanri is that it includes monthly and quarterly reviews to make sure progress is going well. This gives teams at every level an opportunity to talk about what things like sales dashboards look like against goals and how to make adjustments if sales are not growing as fast as desired.

The goal here is to keep the vision alive by making changes that can adapt to changing economics and market conditions. Rest assured that Hoshin Kanri visions are not set-it-and-forget-it goals, but they require ongoing steering to push ahead.

As far as I can tell, any static plan is going to quickly veer off the track, while the ones you manage and help keep in a straight line can turn setbacks into lessons. Success is all about making adjustments so that a year-end report shows overall gains.

Benefits of Using Hoshin Kanri to Convert Vision Into Reality

The best part about all of this is that Hoshin Kanri is well-suited to help make visions real, so that teams can hit their goals more often, which in turn leads to focused growth around increased sales or becoming the premium store for sustainable products. The other best part is that there is less wasted effort on misaligned tasks, so that priorities feel more energizing, and there is a bridge from idea to impact.

If you have ever worked in a corporate environment, you know that people thrive when they feel a shared purpose with an organization. Leadership in an organization should also immediately value the benefits of improved morale when employees see that what they are working on really matters. Customers also have a chance to benefit from more consistent experiences, like better service.

Over time, implementing Hoshin Kanri fosters a growth mindset and enables faster responses to trends.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

In the overall world of Hoshin Kanri, there is plenty for organizations to love and utilize in order to see success in the future. Whether it’s how to keep retail growth on target or just learning about the metrics that matter, there’s something really strong about this business methodology that works for organizations large and small.

Of course, there is more to the world than just Hoshin Kanri implementation, so you might want to consider doing some more reading around other equally important topics, like Kanban Unlocked, so you can visualize how your work is showing up with productivity gains.

Conclusion

When all is said and done, Hoshin Kanri is very much a no-nonsense way to make your vision or that of your organization more than just words on a whiteboard or in a PowerPoint. This is very much the plan that is going to convert a vision into everyday wins.

Companies that are utilizing Hoshin Kanri are doing so to stay more focused and flexible, so as to turn challenges into steady growth. The reward is that these are the organizations with the strongest teams and steadily improving results.