Re Arie de Geus

[Lin Grist]

Thanks so much everyone!  its one of the things I like most about this group
- there is a wealth of information that just comes in!  I thought it might be
the HBR -  also thanks for the additional references - I was taken with this
work.
Regards to all
Lin Grist
London UK

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>From  Mon Feb  4 08:11:38 2002
Message-Id: <MON.4.FEB.2002.081138.0800.>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 08:11:38 -0800
Reply-To: lisaheft at pacbell.net
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Lisa Heft <lisaheft at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Mission Statement, Service Standards, Service Descriptions
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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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>From  Mon Feb  4 09:50:53 2002
Message-Id: <MON.4.FEB.2002.095053.0700.>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 09:50:53 -0700
Reply-To: richard at wisdomways.net
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: Richard Schultz <richard at wisdomways.net>
Organization: WisdomWays
Subject: Re: Mission Statement, Service Standards, Service Descriptions
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Hi Lisa,

Another couple of books you might find helpful on Vision/Mission are:

Richard Barrett: Liberating the Corporate Soul, Building a Visionary
Organization. His website is www.corptools.net Richard gives training on
his values assessment tool and has a model for facilitating
Vision/Mission statements in organizations.  His model discussed the 7
levels of organizational, personal and leadership consciousness. There
are a number of articles on his site. His work is very much based on
Visionary organizations as defined in "Built To Last"

The second book I would recommend is "Practise What You Preach" by David
Meister. This book is a statistical study and "proofs" that successful
companies practise what they preach, or walk the talk. Vision
statements, mission statements and values are useless if they are only
espoused, they need to be lived in the organization. I think Open Space
would be a great way to work out how the organization is going to LIVE
what they espouse.

Cheers,
Richard Schultz

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