Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net> wrote:
> At de Lange, responding to Felicia Stewart's question about missions and
> visions being [virtually] the same thing, points out that "A vision is
> linguistically a set of declarative sentences (statements). A mission is a
> set of imperative sentences (commands)." When I first read this, I
At's quotation (seems quite accurate and insightful to me; thanks, At)
notwithstanding, I think the number of posts on this topic says something
useful: ASK.
When you're with an organization and they start talking about vision and
mission and ..., get them to put down in words (1 sheet of paper with lots
of white space should do it) what _they_ mean by those words. If the
concepts are sufficiently coherent and consistent, it may be more
effective to go with their definitions and focus on the work rather that
debating the definitions _in that organization_.
After hearing enough debate about these terms elsewhere (before this
thread came up), I found it helpful to think of "vision" and "mission" as
names such as "Sue" and "Jane." I'm not at all sure I can a priori
recognize who or what a "Sue" should be, but, once introduced, I can
usually connect a particular person with her name, "Sue," assuming I don't
have trouble connecting the name and the face. Nametags help.
Inside a particular group, I can also often connect a particular "thing"
with its name, "vision," especially if I have the equivalent of a nametag
of concepts to refer to. I'm not advocating linguistic sloppiness as a
general rule, but I am suggesting that there are such a broad range of
somewhat consistent uses of these terms that inquisitiveness may be the
best policy.
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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