Mission and Strategic Triangle - Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School's Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle - Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact


Third class today revolved around theory of change (causal result of if I do A I will get B).

GREAT article about tools for cooperation. Long discussion about culture shift requiring more than tools - you need agreement! Nothing new here but really interesting framework that broke out the tools. The document is locked so I can't copy it into this entry. (I promise to post and discuss when I get back).

The final session today (well yesterday now that it is 12:25) was all about mission! Surprise! Imagine that. The real surprise it that a t a nonprofit strategy program we waited until day two to thoroughly dissect the importance of mission and what are the components of a good mission.

We looked at sample missions from some of the program participants. Of course since Harvard is so savvy, they went to the organizations websites to find the mission versus asking the participant's to provide it. This lead to several vision statements being pulled, organizational descriptions being pulled, or other narratives. Tricky how they slid in a lesson about clarity on communications espiecally your website! You Harvard folks!

Breaking down what should be in a mission with 82 nonprofit peers makes for some interesting discussion. All of the missions answered the question "what the organization does?" Some of the missions answered "who the organziation is?" Some answered "What the organization will achieve - how the organizaiton will transform its community (values and vision are of course inclusive in this)?" We were back to auditable and aspirational - go back to earlier post (I promise I will put links in when I am back and not so tired).

So began the debate - should missions be auditable? Do you include aspirational goals in the mission? What is the place of that value chain (see next post about value chain and the playhouse) we talked about yesterday (I know links). What is the difference between a mission statement and vision statement - do you need both. If mission talks about value and social impact of organization, does vision than talk about the relationship between the results of what you do and how it changes the world?

Of course at this point I think - wow we need to rewrite our mission statement, immediately followed by wow am I too critical of our mission statement.

Why do we have mission statements in the first place? Well we have to have a purpose right? We know it isn't to fill shareholders pockets or any individuals pockets with profits. We have to have an identity right? A uniqueness? A reason our community needs us? We have to use our resources and capabilities to fill some social need, don't we. Isn't is our job to search for the highest value for our organizational assets (this one was Professor Moore's). I guess that's why we have mission statement. We need something to guide us in our decisions and work.

But let's go with Professor Moore...If a leader's job is to find the highest value use of the organizational assests, what does that mean...

The Strategic Triangle!

Legitamacy and Support / Organization / Mission

The value chain connects organization and mission.

Balanced off of Needs, Task Enviroment, Clients, Donors, and a collective agreement about value reinforced by donor "approval of the collective value!"

Okay so we still don't have agreement from 82 people about what goes in a mission statement!

So how about this criteria - suggested from class:
1. Mission mobilizes legitmacy and support from a third party (donors)
2. Mission is a direct statement of organizational value (value chain)
3. Mission gives guidence, focus, direction, and measurement to operations

If we go with that it is an auditable mission. But there was a call that it should also make a promise. (absolute vs. relevence)

So back to my thoughts on our mission...

...to transform lives through the power of theatre. Our aim is to enlighten, enrich and engage a diverse community of theatre lovers, artists and students by presenting excellent professional theatre and offering a welcoming experience that perpetuates the long tradition of the "red barn."

How does it stack up against the above criteria? If that is the right criteria? Well that is certainly something to explore with others when I get back?

Note to self - seriously in the blog not from class - I think our shared vision statement get to some of this...Must check. Thank goodness it is hanging above the desk in my office :) On the bulleton board next to this theatre OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measurement).

Okay it's 1:00Am I better go to sleep if I want to gain any knowledge from tomorrow's classes.