• Articles & Whitepapers
  • For Facilitators
  • For Consultants and IT Professionals
  • For Leaders
  • For Strategic Partners
  • For United Ways
  • Client Success Stories
• Newsletter Archives

The PDI Difference

• Practical
• Dynamic
• Interactive

Developing the Mission Statement: A Case Study

By Michael Wilkinson, CMF
Managing Director, Leadership Strategies, Inc.

A core component of an organization's strategy is a clear and concise mission statement. In our model for strategic planning, The Drivers Model, we define mission as follows.

While the mission is a core component of strategy, we strongly advise against writing a mission statement as the first, second or even third activity in a strategy planning session. If you have been through the typical mission writing exercise, you probably understand why. Planning teams typically spend hours and often days haggling over the exact wording for the mission. And while the words are important, there could be significant benefit gained from using a process that helps the planning team move quicker to consensus.

Our Mission Development Process

In analyzing the challenge that groups have in developing mission statements, we have concluded that a key source of the difficulty is that the group is trying to answer three questions:

What can make the mission discussions so frustrating is that you can have all three discussions happening at once, because conclusions have not been reached on the three elements separately. For example, while one person is arguing over changing a word, another is arguing over a concept that appears to be missing, while a third is insisting that the mission should be aspirational.

Our process for creating mission statements is to answer the following questions, in this order:

1. Where are we now and what key trends will impact our success in the future? (SWOT analysis and/or positioning against trends)
2. What might success look like in the future, 10 years out? (visioning)
3. Given this description of success, what are the broad goals for long-term sustained success? (goal statements)
4. Given these goals, what does this imply that our mission is? (mission statement)

To answer question 4, we have the entire group answer the three bullets:

• What do we do?
• For whom do we do it?
• What is the benefit?

The Case Study

Recently, we were working with the Diversity Leadership Forum. The DLF is a trade association of diversity professionals. While some of their members work inside organizations, others are external trainers and consultants. The organization convenes an annual conference of diversity professionals and is in process of establishing competency models for different approaches to diversity. They desired to develop a strategic plan because they felt they had not clearly defined their niche or how they would go about gaining the commitment of others to join them.

Step 1. Where are we now?

The team identified several strengths, areas for improvement and potential strategies to consider. Among them:

• Our standards of practice, ethics and information are good
• Positive recognition that we are developing the field and educating members concerning competencies and standards
• Lack of clarity about who the forum is for
• A lot of people don't seem to know what we offer or haven't used what we offer
• There's a need for on-going communication and education
• Aligning diversity ideas with the business and how it operates (i.e., alignment internally and externally); going beyond the fluff to meet tangible mission- critical outcomes could be helpful
• Consider seeking endorsements from peer organizations for the competency models, etc. (include leaders in various approaches)
• Consider producing definitive paper on how to develop and execute cultural competence
• Consider preparing practitioners to deal with changed and changing demographic trends
• Consider establishing a national database of practitioners

Step 2. Where do we want to be?

In response to a visioning exercise which guided the participants to define success 10 years out, 30+ vision elements were identified, such as the following:

• A source for diversity content
• Premier resource for practitioners developments
• Competencies nationally recognized, elevate field, essential
• Move diversity to recognized discipline
• Remove structural inequalities in management, domestic and international
• Advance inclusion around the world
• Great financial endowment

Step 3. What are the broad goals for long-term sustained success?

Using the vision elements as a starting point, the participants developed five broad goals for the organization.

Step 4. What is our mission?

After a discussion of the purpose of a mission statement and a review of several relatively strong and relatively weak mission statements, the participants were asked to answer the three critical mission questions for DLF. One of the participants responded to the three questions as follows and the facilitator recorded the answers on a flip chart for all to see.

• What do we do? - Provide a forum for growth and development
• For whom do we do it? - Diversity professionals
• What's the benefit? - Recognition and advancement of the field of diversity

Suddenly, one of the participants yelled out, "That's it! That's our mission! That's it right there!" After 10 minutes of discussion. The rest of the participants readily agreed.

With the completion of steps 1-3 in the process, this team reached consensus on their mission statement in under 20 minutes. As the weight-loss ads say, "These results aren't typical your results might vary." However, it is not unusual for a group using this process to reach consensus in 60-90 minutes.

You can learn more about strategic planning techniques like these through our online strategy course, Springboard Online! Or contact one of our client relationship managers to have one of our facilitators work with you.

About the Author
Michael Wilkinson is the Managing Director of Leadership Strategies - The Facilitation Company and author of The Secrets of Facilitation. He is a Certified Master Facilitator and a much sought after strategic planning facilitator and speaker.