The best analogy of determining the Vision, Purpose, Mission and Value statements that I have come across is given by Authentic Education: Click here to read more.

Simply put the Vision is where are you going, what do we want to achieve. It should be lofty, idealistic and inspiring. The Purpose is:

• Why are you going there?
• What do you want to achieve?
• What motivates you to even be on-board?

The Mission is the path, the how you are going to get there. What are the things you are going to do to get to your Vision? Goals become the sign posts along the way. In order for goals to be sustainable, they need to be stepping stones towards achieving the Vision, commitments that bring us closer to our end objective. Progress, achieving goals, will then bring the satisfaction and excitement of achievement as we move closer to the Vision.

But, what about our Values?

First we need to understand the difference between Principles and Values. There is a clear distinction. Principles are universal and time-honoured across cultures. They are the lighthouses warning us of dangers along our path e.g.

• fairness,
• integrity and
• honesty.

Values on the other hand are changeable. They reflect what is critical to us today but can change as we grow and change focus and move along our path. Values are our life-lines that keep us from being washed over-board as the wave washes over the deck. Values therefore must be held as the standard before us, encourage us to strive towards something better, but must also be relevant to our current situation.

As the year rushes ahead and we find ourselves in our daily rush around the slippery deck, let’s remember to check our safety lines, let’s look up and make sure there are no lighthouses signalling danger. In order to that we need to spend time with ourselves in deep reflection. We may not emerge with clarity the first time round but a life-time of reflection as a habit will show the results!

Author: Dr Lynne Derman

Dr Lynne Derman is a renowned expert in the field of organisational energy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Johannesburg in Leadership, Performance and Change. The title of her thesis – Organisational Energy & Individual Well-being.  At the time, she was one of the first to investigate organisational energy as a concept, a concept that has since grown in importance internationally in the fields of research and academia.  As part of her Ph.D Lynne validated a measure of organisational behaviour and energy in the South African context, a first of its kind.  Lynne’s research, as well as her considerable experience in Human Resources, combines toward creating new knowledge in the field as well as making an important practical contribution to organisations.

To read more about ODI’s Operations Management and Improvement Coaching, click here.

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Organisations are considered to be machines, not merely like one. Such a view derives from the exclusive use of analysis, and the doctrines of reductionism and determinism. People are seen as parts that fit into a machine. Authoritarianism is the norm. Employees consequently lose the capability to think independently, and develop an attitude of helpless acquiescence. This in turn results in a lack of opportunities to generate learning and new meaning. Peters and Waterman open the second chapter of their book In Search of Excellence with the following statement: “Professionalism in management is regularly equated with hard-headed rationality…The numerative, rationalist approach to management dominates the business schools…It seeks detached, analytical justification for all decisions. It is right enough to be dangerously wrong, and it has arguably led us seriously astray” (Peters & Waterman, 1982. p. 29).

A serious outcome of this style of management is that “many topics become totally un-discussable at any organisational level, and everyone develops feelings of helplessness and inevitability, resulting in a vicious cycle of reluctance to exercise personal responsibility, and the development of a culture of indifference and apathy. We cannot be against rational analysis, and must acknowledge that post World War II industry needed such an approach, but this approach, particularly the narrow form of analysis that is business practice, has become outdated and there is a call for a new kind of management. The form of management most heavily criticized here is a result of mechanistic thinking. The old rationality is a direct descendent of Frederick Taylor’s school of scientific management and has ceased to be a useful discipline. Energy which could have been applied productively actually becomes a damaging force that undercuts performance.

The mechanistic model of thinking may have given the West technological advancement but it has also led to a consistent disregard for any non-measurable concepts such as energy and the human spirit. The biggest problem with modern capitalism as currently defined is that it makes two basic assumptions about humanity. First, it assumes that human beings are primarily economic beings, who have, as Adam Smith phrased it, a “natural propensity to truck, barter, and exchange”. Secondly, capitalism assumes that human beings will always “pursue our own rational self-interest”.

These belief systems are inadequate in today’s world. As markets become more globally competitive and technology more advanced, many organisations have found it increasingly difficult to sustain a competitive advantage. The fall of some of the corporate icons of American business success, testify to this. It is recognized today that a fundamentally different approach to managing employees than the centralized, control-oriented approach of Frederick Taylor is required. The new role of top management is to unleash the human spirit, which makes initiative, creativity, and entrepreneurship possible. This depends on establishing an organisational climate that allows the human capacity for innovation and creativity to flourish. Within this context, the concept of energy becomes a useful tool with which to study organisations.

Author: Dr Lynne Derman.

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