Hi everyone!
I have been reading the LO digests for some time and this is my first
contribution. Since we are going through some similar experiences and
Lisetta is also in Northern Ontario, I decided to comment on her topic.
Lisetta wrote:
> We started off thinking that we had to "manage change" only to find that
> focusing only on the process of change was sterile. We need to examine
> where we are going as departments, as a University, and develop a "mission
> statement" that is alive and dynamic, which gives real meaning.
We went through an effort several years ago to create a mission statement
for our organization. This was in a similar vein to help create some
direction and focus. In our case, the mission statement is the purpose of
the organization. To quote: "Our mission: To make Northern Ontario a
better place to live and do business through solutions based on
information technology."
We found that the mission statement was beneficial but wasn't specific
enough to give people a direction to focus their energy on. After we
publicized it and discussed it with all of the employees, people kept
asking "What's our direction?" "Where are we going as a company?" "Give
me something that helps me set my goals."
Coming from a monopoly environment, most of our planning has been
operational, based on growth and demand for new telecommunications
services. To prepare for a new operating environment, we are now
devleoping a vision statement for the company which we see as "the future
state of the company at some specific point in time". We created the
first draft of the vision in a workshop of 12 management employees and a
professional facilitator/management consultant. We based the workshop on
the book "Visionary Leadership" by Burt Nanus. The people involved with
the vision were enthusiastic about it and we are pleased with the results
so far.
We plan to refine what we have and get comments from the other 100 or so
employees and our stakeholders. Then we plan to use the vision to develop
our corporate values and strategic objectives for the next 3 years and
then our annual operating and capital spending plans from there. Our
difficulty will be following through with this initiative to get the
result we're after.
This has been a learning experience for us so I expect we'll go through a
plan/do/review process to find ways to improve our results for the next
time.
Brian Wheeler
Director Engineering
O.N.Tel
bwheeler@ontel.com
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