Lead Your Goals Like a CEO: With Strategy
Hoshin Kanri is a method companies use to make sure everyone in the organization is working towards the same goal. Can you imagine the chaos if a Manufacturing team was working on something different than Supply Chain was working on? The company wouldn’t make the right product. Or, if they did, it would take a lot longer.
Companies must decide on a strategy and communicate it clearly throughout the organization.
And you do, too!
Why traditional goal-setting doesn’t always work
On the good days, everything lines up in unison and you go to bed with a smile of satisfaction. Life is moving forward!
Unfortunately, most of the times, our goals are created in isolation of each other. “Lose weight” and “get to bed earlier” each get their own checklist of how to accomplish.
Traditional goal-setting doesn’t start with a strategy or consider where you are LOSING resources; traditional goal-setting doesn’t treat you like a CEO.
Think of yourself like the CEO of a company
You are the CEO of your life, and your job as CEO is to make sure everything works together to stay on track.
You manage your moods, responsibilities, relationships, and household. Your resources are your time, money, support network, and energy. Based on these, you figure out in your planner how to create routines and systems to achieve your goals.
Using Hoshin Kanri
By starting with the end in mind, everything you do lines up perfectly so that you see actual improvements! Without a purpose, your goals are created in isolation of each other. You might lose 20 pounds, but then what’s your goal after that?
Remember, it’s the direction you’re going not the speed that matters. This is the best way to make sure your habits and goals are going in the same direction.
Every day, you will see small improvements in your habits, which will then help you achieve your goals, which will then impact your purpose. It’s all connected., as long as you are strategic.
Implementing Hoshin Kanri in your personal goals
1. Create a Purpose
What is the overall objective you are aiming to achieve? Is it to be physically healthy, to get promoted, to start a side hustle, to reduce your anxiety? You can determine a life purpose, but I find that too overwhelming. For now, focus on the next 1–5 years.
2. Create Goals
These should align to your purpose. If your purpose it to be physically healthy, then a goal should NOT be to start an aquarium. While it could be fun, you must admit that time spent on that is keeping you from your purpose. You (just like a company) have a finite number of resources, energy, and attention span.
· Focus on 5 goals (or less).
· Do the right things (being effective), not the wrong things right (being efficient). Strategic goals need to take you to the next level. If a goal doesn’t have that kind of impact, it’s probably not strategic.
· Label the goal as evolutionary (it’s okay to tweak and grow them over time) or revolutionary (would require dramatic changes) and make sure there’s a balance of the two.
· If your goals involve anyone else (for example, to fit in a work out, your wife needs to start taking the kids to school), get their buy-in and commitment to help.
· Track progress in a way that drives behavior. For example, having a chart to check off if you worked out 5 days a week could one day make you exercise with minimum effort just so you can check off the box. “Reach a heart rate of 175 5 days a week” could be more specific for your needs. (Businesses call these Key Performance Indicators.)
· Own your goals! You are 100% responsible.
3. Set up your habits for success
Once you set your 5 or fewer goals, your habits must support them. If your habit is to oversleep and your purpose includes leading other people, oversleeping probably doesn’t help your image or motivation.
Look at your schedule, and figure out what habits should stay or go. How will your decisions, routines, and thoughts continue to fulfill your goals and purpose? Which ones stand in your way? Analyze them in this step.
4. Take action!
So far, your purpose and goals are just an intent. Taking action is where the results can actually occur. You can do it! Consider adopting positive affirmations or writing your purpose and goals by your bathroom mirror so you that you can be constantly reminded of the journey you agreed on.
Now you know why companies have their mission statements and yearly goals on posters and their website for everyone to see! When you take action, you’re holding yourself accountable to what you said you would do.
5. Review and adjust
You are the CEO, so you can control and adjustment of the entire process based on the results (or lack of) that you are seeing. Progress should be tracked continuously and reviewed weekly or monthly. These progress checkpoints provide an opportunity for adjustment of tactics and their associated operational details.
Remember the example of reaching a heart rate of 175 5 days a week? This is when you would review that chart, make sure it still aligns with your purpose, then change it to 4 days a week or to a heartrate of 170, based on the level of success you realize you can achieve.
You can do it!
This is a sure-fire way to make your habits and goals have meaning. When they have meaning, you create an emotional connection with them and are less likely to waste your time on non-value-added activities… like scrolling Instagram, sleeping in, or going on a side-quest that is only distracting you from your Purpose.
