The success of any strategy and its execution is a dependent on the how leaders within the organization demonstrate ownership and participate in its execution.
Most conventional strategic management approaches don’t have well defined roles that leaders need to play, when it comes to strategy creation and execution. In many cases, the roles are un-articulated and considered to be inherent to the leader’s position. As a result, things start off very well with the strategic plan formulation, but things fad when it comes to strategy execution. By the end of year, there are arguments, disagreements and displeasure in owning failures and success.
Hoshin Kanri(Policy Deployment) Japanese strategy and execution approach is a well designed approach that clearly defines the various roles involved in the strategy formulation and its execution. While it is still the leaders of the organization who plays these roles, because the roles are articulated, a level playing ground is established. This acts as an enabler for successful execution of strategic plans.
Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) approach advocates Individual Ownership and Joint Accountability(IOJA). Hence roles are defined for individual and for groups. Here are the key individual and group roles in Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) :
Hoshin Leadership Team is nothing but a steering committee that is responsible for creating and executing strategic plans within the organization. Usually it has representatives from the senior management team. The Chief Executive or President is the chairperson of this team. However, the criteria is not necessarily hierarchy driven. It depends on many other factors. I’ve discussed the functioning of Hoshin Leadership Team in a separate article.
Functional Hoshin Leadership Teams can be formed depending on the how the organization chooses to cascade their strategic plans to downstream organization. The role of functional hoshin leadership team will be similar to that of organizational hoshin leadership team, but restricted to respective functions.
These are teams formed to driven strategic projects. Strategic projects are also called as hoshins or strategic initiatives. The composition of the team is usually cross-functional in nature. This team is led by a Hoshin Leader who is responsible to deliver the objectives of the project, formation of the team and reporting of progress to Hoshin Leadership Team. The team members will be assigned specific tasks. Team members have joint accountability to fulfill the objectives of strategic project. These teams are dissolved once the project meets its objectives.
This core committee consists of key sponsors of the Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) deployment program in the organization. The role of this committee is to plan, review and implement necessary course correction in its implementation through hoshin policies, change management, corporate communication, etc. Usually this committee is spearheaded by the hoshin kanri (Policy Deployment) facilitator, who is usually an expert in Hoshin Kanri (Policy Deployment) and may be external to the organization. He/she seamlessly works across various levels of the organization throughout the year for strategy formulation and its execution.
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