December 31st, 2009
by Dr. Brian Higley |
Many organizations, teams and individuals work very hard to develop Mission and Vision Statements – yet almost everyone I speak with believes that they often do not seem to “live” these statements extremely well. Each year, a lot of valuable time and energy go into developing Mission Statements that will quickly be forgotten or ignored in the often frantic day-to-day activities that follow.
November 2nd, 2008
by Dr. Brian Higley |
To return to the original Mission Activation article, click here.
Here are what we have found to be the six most important components of Mission Activation. Since we believe that Mission Activation is so similar to the process of growing a strong tree, we often refer to the process of Mission Activation as growing an “Excellence Tree.”
1. “Check The Soil”: Assess current levels of (and potential for) Mission Activation. In order to activate a mission statement, it is often helpful to first get a sense of how many of the Mission Activation components listed below are working for (or against) teams and individuals. There are many ways to assess the soil — some more valid than others. We’ve found that the best way to assess current Mission Activation potential is by having team members to take part in a confidential online Mission Activation assessment, such as the WATER Assessment (for more on the acronym WATER, click here). For individuals who are not a part of a team or group, we assess the soil on an more individual basis via the Self-Mastery Assessment.
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November 1st, 2008
by Dr. Brian Higley |
To return to descriptions of all 6 steps toward Mission Activation, click here.
Living a mission statement requires an Activated Mission. The metaphor of an “Excellence Tree” was designed to help promote Mission Activation. Here are the four phases of “Mission Activation Step 2: “Planting an Excellence Tree” the second step to consider when attempting to actually live a mission statement:
A) Identification of “mission-aligned” primary objectives is the first phase of Planting the Tree. In order to see more Mission Activation, everyone needs to know (and agree, at least to a certain extent) that objectives such as “Increase financial profits by 10% this quarter” or “Promote a culture of excellence and satisfaction throughout the team,” or “Recruit and train the best people,” etc. are the most important ways in which to spend time, money, and energy. Primary objective clarification often plays a key role in helping teams stay motivated to live their mission on a daily basis. If people know why they are being asked to do something (e.g., “because it helps us accomplish Primary Objective #1 – and because Primary Objective #1 helps fulfill mission in this way . . ., “), they tend to have a stronger commitment to doing what they are asked to do at a high level of quality. At our firm we call this process “Mission Connection;” getting ourselves and others strongly connected with our Mission by being able to answer all “why should I do this?” questions with “because it helps our mission stay activated — and here’s how. . . ”
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September 15th, 2008
by Dr. Brian Higley |
I’m often told that people fall into 2 categories: “wishers” and “doers.” Individuals who tell me this are often surprised to hear my response: that my experience and research indicates that this is almost always absolutely untrue! My conclusion may seem counter-intuitive at first, but I recently conducted a scientific study on this topic and found some very interesting results that might be helpful to both your business and your personal life.
February 4th, 2008
by John Spence |
I was recently invited to return to the Wharton School of Business for the fourth year in a row to teach a special class on strategic planning for the Securities Industry Institute. I called them last week to ask if it were possible to shift the class more from “planning” to strategic “thinking” this year, but was surprised to find out that 98 executives had already signed up for the class based on the catalog description of it as a solid look at how to write and effective strategic plan. So I decided to go back and take a hard look at the class and see if I could update it a bit and was surprised to have an epiphany of sorts.
I have long decried that one of the factors that inhibits the ability to write a good strategic plan is the lack of “strategic thinking” that typically goes into the planning process. If a practitioner is not spending serious time and effort on the thinking part of the equation, there is the possibility they can do the planning part of the process (the methodology, the framework) superbly, only to create a flawed plan because it was based on poor information and ideas. Then I realized that was another major issue that I simply had not been stressing enough; the execution of the plan.
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