Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail | The Daily Management Systems That Makes Them Stick

Speaker A: Welcome to leanverse where lean thinking meets modern life. I'm um, your host Bernadette Hill and I'm joined by my co host Tatiana Sell.

Speaker B: We're two lean Six Sigma black belts

Speaker A: who spent our careers helping people and

Speaker B: organizations simplify, improve and thrive. Our goal at leanverse is to ignite

Speaker A: the desire for transformation and provide the

Speaker B: tools to turn intention into action.

Speaker A: Hi, welcome to leanverse, the new podcast where we explore lean thinking in modern life. My name is Bernadette Hill and I'm a lean Six Sigma black belt and

Speaker B: a continuous improvement professional.

Speaker C: Hi everyone, I'm Tatiana Sao, co host of the Lean Verse with Bernadette Hill. I'm a business operations and continuous improvement

Speaker A: leader and together we geek out about all things Lean.

Speaker C: Geek out on Lean Six Sigma methodology.

Speaker A: I am joined by my co host Tatiana Sell.

Speaker C: Let's dig in.

Speaker B: Over the past few episodes we've been exploring a simple but uncomfortable question. Why do New Year's resolutions fail even with the best intentions? We talked about alignment, about choosing goals that actually matter. We talked about measurement, about the difference between tracking activity and seeing what's really happening. In this final episode, we want to bring it all together because intention without feedback fades and feedback without response doesn't change anything. This is where resolutions stop being promises and start becoming practice.

Speaker A: Tatiana, nice to see you again.

Speaker C: Yeah, nice to see you too.

Speaker A: So remember when we started this New Year's Eve, uh, resolution series, we were talking about behaviors and systems and daily management is how teams stay connected, um, so that they can achieve their strategic goals every year. It's how they notice problems early on and are able to decide what to do about it now and not weeks later. Um, and in lean terms, daily management is the system of visual management, daily rhythms and huddles that can connect our strategy to the daily work and kind of higher problem solving. Because when people can see the same information at the same time and talk about it, then that trust builds between them and that's how high performing teams get built as well. So problems stop feeling personal and red indicators stop meaning failure.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: So daily management systems, um, help teams see problems early while they're still manageable. And, and at work this may mean, you know, huddling the team around a, uh, dashboard of leading metrics that are visible to everyone so we aren't relying on that gut feel. And then folks can see the same indicators. And um, that shared visibility changes the conversation from opinions to decisions, which is where we want to be. And at home that visibility may work the same way. So when our families Kanban board that we talked about in our previous episodes is visible to everyone. Nobody has to nag. I don't have to nag people to get the chores done. You can see what's piling up, what's done and what needs attention. Um, so the system does the talking. And now Tatiana. We've circled all the way back to the first episode of the New Year's Resolution series. Building systems that work with the behaviors that turn intention into actions.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's true. Important to emphasize one thing. Daily management is not a status meeting disguise. Very, very important understanding here. If it feels like one system's broken, the real job of daily management it is to surface obstacles, uh, develop people and make improvement part of everyday work. So long term goals don't fade into the background as you mentioned before.

Speaker A: Right. And then that's why, that's how daily, uh, management systems actually matter. Because the long term goals don't fade. Daily management is how you remember a resolution exists after that first week in January. Right. Goals don't usually fail loudly. They decay quietly. Um, and those just in our distractions, our day to day distractions, they just pile up so our attention drifts. Um, Daily management systems matter because they create the discipline to spot signals early on. And when it's working, it helps teams separate noise from real signals. Um, before everything turns into a fire drill. I've been at work many years and this happens quite a bit where we all think we're rushing to fix something, but it really is not where the real problem is. Um, when we have good daily management systems in place, we can. We know when performance is good or bad. Um, or unstable. That's another great word. Uh, not at the end of the month, but today. And if you need a spreadsheet and meeting to know if that's happening, then you're, you're already too late. Right? It's like a New Year's resolution when no one checks in until February. By the time you notice that it's off track, the problem feels way too big. Instead of just being a missed signal.

Speaker C: Correct. This is one reason why daily management matters. Let me give you another. The critical layer here is again, baseline and stability. We talked a little bit about that in the previous episode. Go. Settings only work if you understand what stable performance looks like. Otherwise you are just reacting to noise. Daily management really helps teams to distinguish between what it's a real problem and in what it's normal variation before jumping into action. And when I say action, I'm not saying jumping to solutions. Okay. Bad juju, bad cardio. Jumping to solutions. We need to understand root causes first, uh, if they are not known. But here's the deal. Daily management. It's also where the leaders, they stop firefighting. When daily management works, problems surface earlier. Anyways, I think it's time to wrap up. We got some very good concepts of why it matters when people don't get the support and the empowerment that they need to solve the problems they are raising. During the huddles, for example, you know what happen? Engagement totally rots. Day management, when done well, creates a different dynamic. It's a safe space. People raise concerns, they ask questions, they challenge. They truly participate. That's respect for people in practice, that's how the management actually set the teams up for success.

Speaker A: I love that you just said the respect for people, um, piece because I, you know, it's about having that voice, being able to make change in a process that may not be working for me. Um, and, and because I might be the expert in what I'm doing because I do it every day, being able to then raise ideas about how we can make that better and have those be received. To have your idea listened to and then implemented. Right. It's just so powerful. So, um, so you're right. So in wrapping this up, I know you, we gave some great examples about daily management systems. And I want to kind of wrap up, you know, take us through all the pieces that we talked about so far. So remember in episode one of our New Year's Resolution series, we were talking about, we started with talking about Hoshin Kanri, and in our family, our North Star we had talked about is harmony. Most of the time we set the direction first, then we set the goals and then decide on tactics. Right. That's how we, we progress. So what if we as a family had decided that our, uh, to set a big initial goal, you had talked about saving $30,000 in six months. Right. What if we decided that that was a, uh, goal that we were going to set so that we can buy, uh, take our family of four on a giant luxurious vacation, uh, across Europe. Right. We're going to save that $30,000 in order to do that? Well, that supports our North Star of, you know, family harmony most of the time. And it sounds like a great goal that will bring us closer to that, you know, true north. But also it sounds like a pretty big goal. Um, that's going to take some alignment from everybody. Right. We've got four people that have to agree on this. So, you know, if we focus on, just like we did in our last episode, goals that matter, we could have a conversation with our family member, you know, I. E. Our work team about, um, about what, what, uh, about that goal, and talk about, do a little bit of catch ball and talk about, you know, is that the goal that we want, can we do? Is that goal even achievable for our family and our current situation? Right. Um, so maybe we have to do some adjustments. Maybe that goal is too big. And maybe our family members are like, we can't save $30,000 because I'm not willing and able to cut out cable or do, you know, are the comforts of life. But maybe through that catch ball discussion, we do get to some things that we are willing and able to do. And so maybe that changes the goal from. We adjust, you know, and change the goal from a big, luxurious $30,000 vacation to a goal of a vacation that's a little bit smaller, but that is still going to get us to our North Star. Right? Um, like visiting one of the national parks. Like your goal was a little bit earlier. So that goal adjustment happens through catch ball. And we talked a little bit about that. And. But to make any of that real, we need also to understand what our baseline is. How much are we. We want to save 30,000. Or now maybe it's less because we're going to do a less expensive vacation. Um, so what is our current bank account look like? What's that baseline look like? What are we spending? Right? And if we look at that all together, we might decide, determine that, ooh, our highest expense is eating out. Like you said, Uber eats. Right? Um, maybe m. That's something that we can, we can go ahead and adjust, right? Maybe now we're not saving 30,000, we're saving a different amount of dollars a little bit less, doing things that are achievable and actionable. Right? We talked about smart goals, um, and then now our indicator may not be the bank account dollars every day that maybe we're all looking at, right? As that visual indicator, because that's a lagging indicator because the money is already spent. But a leading indicator could be how many times are eating out per week. Because we've already identified that, you know, we eat out a lot, it costs us a lot of money. We could save money by eating out less. And guess what other goal is eating out less helps us support our North Star of, uh, spending more time together. So we didn't need the big $30,000 vacation. We still want to take it and now we're all aligned on what we're going to do every single day. That's daily management to get there. We have a visual system that may be a Kanban board of, you know, actions we're taking in order to save up for that trip. Um, and now we're also, uh, uh, aligning on a different vacation that supports the same North Star, and we're all aligned to that. So are we all now more likely to save money to get us on vacation? Yes. Would be less likely if me, the executive of um, the family, decided, nope, everybody's just going to be take the pain of the next six months of saving that $30,000 and I'm going to choose where we're going to get to go to. How likely is it that we're going to achieve that goal? And if we did, how likely is it going to be that everybody's going to be aligned to it and happy that we're there? Not likely. Right. So all of those steps that we put into place mean that we're going to have an amazing vacation. We're not going to, it's not going to be too painful to get there. And when we get there, we're all excited about it because we all wanted, we all were willing to, um, do the work that it took and manage our system daily in order to get there. So that's alignment, same North Star adjusted goals, daily behaviors that metrics, uh, that matter and shared success at the end.

Speaker C: Ooh, very nice. I love how you brought everything together. And I was even thinking when you're talking about that you and your husband are part of the tier 2. When you are together with your folks, your kids and your dog, it's the tier one group. Just making sure that you come from the big strategy that you mentioned. You, uh, use the Hoshin Curry to the point of the daily management of the regular everyday things. Very, very nice. Uh, is it time to recap?

Speaker A: I think it's time to recap.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: All right. So we, we spent this whole episode talking about daily management systems and hopefully we simplified what that means for everybody. But really it's how your strategy becomes a good daily behavior. Right. Um, not through more meetings, not through, um, you know, more touch points, but really through clarity, the, you know, rhythm and early. And paying attention to early signals. Early signals don't mean anything if you're not paying attention to them. Right. So we pay attention to those. Um, it helps teams notice drift early, uh, surface those problems early in a safe environment. Right. Thought, thought experiments cost Nothing.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Thought experiments does nothing. Um, and then they can act while there's still time instead of firefighting later. And at home, it can mean the difference. You know, it's the difference between my family realizing that in March that we have saved nothing towards our vacation trip. So the money's gone and everybody's frustrated versus if we were checking in weekly, noticing our spending drift early, adjusting together, and then protecting that budget, um, for our awesome vacation and the harmony that we actually care about. It's how you adjust while you're still looking out for each other, and that's whether or not you're in a family or a team.

Speaker C: Well, once I heard someone saying that daily management is not reporting the news, it's making it.

Speaker B: Uh, well, as we close this series, here's the thread that runs through all of it. Resolutions don't fail because people don't care enough. They fail because most of us are trying to change outcomes without changing the systems underneath them. Alignment gives us direction. Measures give us visibility. But it's the response, what we do when things go red or even stay green for too long that determines whether change actually sticks. Daily management isn't about control or perfection. It's about learning in real time, adjusting with intention and stuff, staying connected to what matters, even when life gets busy. If this way of thinking resonates with you, we've created a new space inside the savage simplicity ecosystem called the Lean Mastery Maker Space. It's a place for people who want to practice lean thinking beyond the tools as a way to see systems more clearly, tell the truth about what's working, and make meaningful improvements without adding noise. There is no pressure, or it's just an invitation to explore. We'll see you next time on the Lean Verse. Because life is hard, why not make it simpler?