Mission Statement, Service Standards, Service Descriptions

[Lisa Heft]

Dear Lin, Winston, Artur, Hape, Kerry, Traudel and Esther -

Thank you for your rich response, and for the sources of further reading and
understanding.

I totally agree with your thoughts that trying to do a mission statement is
- too much for a single event
or
- really something that takes a long time (and many more kinds of
stakeholders, if you ask me) to develop
or
- for most organizations it's irrelevant to the way they approach their work
or
- it's so often a 'quick fix' idea that makes somebody feel good but is
never worth anything if every employee doesn't understand it, take pride in
it, feel that it adds passion and direction to their work
or
...all of the above.

...and I agree that 'visioning' can be very helpful -- *throughout* the work
(not just a set aside workshop that happens only once a year or less).

It calls to mind the Carver method of Board (of Directors) governance (hi,
Ed Ball!!) for older organizations (some years down the line) where your
directors set the end statements and everyone works from that versus a
mission statement (I feel quite clumsy at explaining this - Ed or any other
Carver specialist care to explain this? ) Not that I would recommend this
(method) for an organization at this new merger's stage, by the way.

I agree that one can use OST in a great way to define service standards and
how to achieve them.

Winston, you said it so clearly:
>It feels to me like there are two quite different questions/agendas
involved here. One is the mission/vision/purpose/direction work, and the
other is operationalizing that into standards and plans to implement it.<

-and-

>I believe the main
challenge is trying to frame a single O/S theme to cover both areas in one
meeting, since one would think there needs to be some kind of
convergence/completion on the vision (which would then become a "given")
before the implementation processes can be addressed effectively.<

As always, your input is quite nutritious...

Lisa

- - -
L i s a   H e f t
Consultant, facilitator, educator
Open Space Technology and Experiential Learning

2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106  USA
(+01) 510 548-8449
lisaheft at pacbell.net
www.openspaceworld.com

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