MR GEOFFREY F FOUNTAIN wrote:
> - combining self-reference (M, V, P, V of the whole) with self-
> organization (empowerment) and local chaos (feeding back info on itself)
> will result in more order
>
> M - mission
> V - vision
> P - principles
> V - values
Geoff had very good things to say, and I don't want my message to detract
from his ideas. However, I think we all would be served well by rethinking
the words Vision add Mission. (Values and principles are still OK, I
think.)
Today when people here the word "vision," their skin crawls. "God, not
another vision," is a fairly common response.
I think the four words used here have been beaten to death -- used and
misused enough to cause permanent nausea.
Four years ago I began to write my personal mission statement; I no longer
call it my mission statement. It simply reads, "I exist to . . ." Another
way of looking at it is "the reason I don't commit suicide is because I'm
going to . . . with my life."
In business, couldn't we just say, "we exist to. . ." and then describe
why we're in business instead of saying, "our mission (or vision) is to .
. ." It seems more appropriate and intuitive, and it gets away from all
the business specific gibberish that employees (and Scott Adams) have come
to disdain.
Perhaps this is heresy -- if so, more power to it! but I really don't see
that big of a distinction between mission and vision. At Novell, Bob
Frankenburg (who is no longer with Novell) had the most convoluted way of
representing these ideas. . .I'm not sure I ever fully understood his
model. To me, it was redundant. To others, it was down right confusing.
I've actually being using this approach in my presentations around Novell,
and it's met with much success. This is what I say (literally), "Novell
exists to change the way people work and share their lives. We do this by
providing the network infrastructure that is and will continue to be used
to by people to communicate with one another." And people love it! If I
were to stand up in front of 200 employees and say, "Our vision is to
change the way people work and share their lives," I'd lose 90% of them
before I even got the word "is" out of my mouth. The word "vision" would
instantly turn them off.
-- Ben Compton The Accidental Learning Group Work: (801) 222-6178 Improving Business through Science and Art bcompton@geocities.com http://www.e-ad.com/ben/BEN.HTMLearning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>