Replying to LO26755 --
Hanching Chung wrote "can you please conribute your thoughts re the
following statement: "Missions and visions are virtually the same thing"":
Hanching, thanks for raising this core business definition issue. There
are some theorists who believe that they are the same or similar concepts.
However, there are numerous strategic theorists who believe that these two
business definitions are fundamentally different; each adding value to the
core definition of the organization.
Before moving into the discussion of strategic vision and mission, I would
like to raise an additional consideration to the lens of the discussion;
that is the concept of "strategic intent". I believe that a good vision
and mission are based upon a core, deep understanding of that the
organization is attempting to accomplish. This discussion begins with a
stream of consciousness, identifying what the members of the organization
desire in terms of impact and outcomes. The product of a strategic intent
discussion is different in each organization, but the purpose is the same.
It is to uncover the core and common intentions of the individuals in the
organization as they move forward together.
Once having discussed the strategic intention, now a group of
organizational members can begin the discussion of vision and mission.
Kepner, Tregoe, Hamel and Prahalad and numerous others discussion both the
vision and the mission; although a warning to the reader is that often the
terms vision and mission are turned around to describe the same concepts.
I teach strategy at the graduate level in higher education. I refer to
vision as the "what"; what business are as in. What is the existential
reason for the organizations existence. In the case of a personal vision,
it would be a statement of "who" am I and what am I accomplishing/what do
I wish to accomplish in the world. The mission statement is how the
organization will go about achieving the vision, creating concrete action
plans through strategies, tactics and activities. Values in a system
refer to the "manner" in which we will move forward to achieve the vision
and the mission. In my opinion, there is not enough time spent in
understanding the strategic intent and the "what" (vision) pieces of
business strategy to support a long-term, binding conversation of
intention in and among organizational members. This creates fragmentation
in the core of the business concept, and allows dissonance of all sorts to
creep into the business relationships and leadership goals.
I will look forward to your thoughts on this ideas.
Linda Suzanne Wing
At 09:49 AM 06/03/2001 +0800, you wrote:
>I am interesting with so many different 'systems' created to accommodate
>the values-visions-missions concepts and their statements. Millions people
>here read them and didn't know exact meaning (?) of very
>values-cultures-loaded concepts for organizational effectiveness or
>learning.
>
>One approach of out of this box is to read Roald Hoffman's The Same and
>not the Same ( Columbia Univ. Press).
--Linda Wing <lwing@usinternet.com>
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