What's in a Mission Statement? LO9267

John Constantine (rainbird@trail.com)
Tue, 20 Aug 1996 08:19:02 -0700

Replying to LO9238 --

Maj. Wilson offered a very valuable example of Air Combat Command's process for
defining its mission.

As I understand and interpret the concept, a mission is something which should
remain unfulfilled, able to be constantly improved upon by those within the
organization.

I believe it is helpful to point out the Mission Statement and its source. We
can only hope it is true. And that, we can only know by doing, not by a mission
statement. That is the essential problem with mission statements in general,
that they tend to be a bit of over-kill (no pun intended) with little chance of
"being" what the organization offers as a mission, unless the organization uses
the rear view mirror as it goes along to see whether it has fulfilled the
mission. If points are given for such things, a zero for the mission statement,
and a 10 for fulfilling the mission (mission accomplished).

Does this make sense to other members who have run into this before as I have?
Such statements if amended offer promise of constantly improving the
organization using tools such as the Shewhart Cycle to better the organization
and its members. The danger is in the belief that it has already succeeded.

--

Regards, John Constantine Rainbird Management Consulting http://www.trail.com/~rainbird

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>