Jorge Bartow in LO20603 posted that he is working on a staff development
project for a school and is proposing to develop a vision and mission. He
was asking for some input.
ABSOLUTELY! Do It!
Given my experience with schools, helping the staff create a working
mission / vision is an important step in the team building and
consensus-building process. Critical. At the same time, no two
organizations are alike so no one statement fits all.
A few months ago, I posted an exercise on developing missions / visions on
my website in response to a lot of requests from posting some of the
details on other listserves. It is NOT designed specifically for schools
but one can easily do so by adding some words and removing some others.
The goal of the exercise is to generate the active involvement of everyone
in the development of their sense of purpose. Nobody ever washes a rental
car and the feeling of ownership is important.
Go to <http://www.squarewheels.com/articles/mission.html>
to get the exercise. You can steal it by highlighting and copying the
content (by design!) or simply print it. Please.
It uses "Fast Networking" as a structure (also a useful interactive model
for other discussions). It is simple and generates lots of discussion as
well as pretty rapid "closure" on content. Style of the document can be
fine-tuned by the senior people. I've done this many times with most
excellent results.
Of course, ANY feedback would be appreciated and I hope that this helps.
And anyone, please contact me directly if I can offer any other assistance
or information,
--For the FUN of It!
Scott Simmerman, Ph.D. Performance Management Company - 800-659-1466 mailto:Scott@SquareWheels.com
A great source for FREE tools and training resources: <www.SquareWheels.com>
"Even caterpillars can fly if they would just lighten up!"
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>