What’s your mission?

Last week I was on an assignment where I attended a brainstorming session to come up with the mission and vision statement for a small emerging organization. We spent a long time explaining the importance of the statements and the difference amongst them.

During the process, we analyzed and looked at the mission and vision statements from various organizations. Some of the common themes that we analyzed helped us understand that the mission statement is the internal view of the organization’s philosophy and the vision is the goal that helps other’s estimate the worth of the organization. Also did our analysis showed a few common elements, that are best described in the two columns –

 

Mission Statement Elements	Vision Statement Elements
Integrity	Profitability
People	System (self-sustained)
Service	Market share
Measure	Purpose
Philosophy	Goal

People, Integrity, Service and welfare are the always portrayed in the mission of any organization. This helps the focus on its working staff and everyone involved. At times, this feeling ensures that the processes or the systems are created with people in mind. But is it always true?

Probably the last point in the table sums it all! For any entrepreneur, meeting the goal is always important as compared to compliance to the philosophy. I am very positive that many of us may have felt the same way.

I remember the long boorish texts we went through during our b-school days to understand the concepts and the differences amongst the two. Many eventually shun the texts since we take up the run-of-the-mill corporate jobs and fool ourselves considering the knowledge for elite entrepreneurs.

In my view each one of us is an entrepreneur and we utilize our entrepreneurship skills during the various transactions we conduct during our day-to-day life. As Dr Devdutt Pattnaik rightly puts – as is your belief, so is your behavior and hence so is your business. Hence having a mission and vision in our personal life helps us too. A healthy philosophy helps us conduct our own business in a healthy manner. A positive mindset towards people and their welfare keeps us on the path that serves the community. While vision is important for growth, mission is important for the sustenance.

An example of this very topic can be seen from our great epics – Mahabharata and Ramayana. In the Ramayana everyone is seen focused on the growth of Aryavarta and riddance from the nasty demons. And this is what is seen towards the end of Ramayana. Not only does Aryavarta gets happiness through Rama’s kingdom, all surrounding kingdoms and people gain happiness and prosperity. Even Lanka – the abode of the Asuras gets a noble ruler in Vibhishana and shuns the demonic ways. At the same time, the epic of Mahabharata shows the destruction of Aryavarta and death to entire ruling clans of India. All the Kauravas, their supporters and supporters of Pandavas all died in the war of Mahabharata. Even the Pandavas died in misery as the epic progresses. But why? At the core of Mahabharata is the motive of every central character of the epic – all of them have their mission embedded in vengeance. Enemity of Drona and Drupada creates Draupadi. Forced marriage of Dhritrashtra with Gandhari creates Shakuni. And the inconsistencies in the community and its rituals creates Karna and many other heros. All the negativity and vengeance based philosophies lead to massive destruction and God himself allows this to happen.

So form your mission and vision wisely. Remember, they may change with time, but the central philosophy must remain healthy.