I remember, years ago, watching my oldest child struggle to loosen a bolt. This was one of those all-too-few, brief, and shining child-rearing moments where I could easily and quickly share some trusty words of wisdom.

“Righty tighty, lefty loosey.”

I’m pretty sure my son’s response was somewhere in the vicinity of “Huh?” Not the effect that I was looking for necessarily.

Nevertheless, I’m going to try to apply the same advice, but to a different subject (totally without threaded parts).

Strategy deployment, aka policy deployment or hoshin kanri.

Huh?

Well, specifically, I’m talking about strategy deployment x-matrices, and the direction in which they should be developed, which is clockwise.

Righty tighty is good. Lefty loosey, or counterclockwise, and the whole thing unwinds. Not good.

We must remember that matrices are tools. They are a way to capture and communicate thinking, facilitate discussion and improvement (through practices like catch ball), and in the event of strategy deployment, aid in vertical and horizontal alignment within the organization.

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