Mission, vision, and values. For so long these core statements were “a must” for any organization to have posted on the wall. In fact, the lack of having mission, vision, and values statements posted publicly for all to see told the observer all they needed to know; “this organization has issues…” …”this organization really needs to step up their game…”…”this organization is obviously not a leader in their respective market…” Sadly, the perceptions of the observer were based on a false premise. The premise that any organization worth paying attention to has stated mission, vision, and values. This false premise was enabled through the common thinking of many organizational leaders, who by no fault of their own, were beholden to the necessity of short-term gains to provide good shareholder returns. If the organization was not a public company with shareholders, then it was assumed that the public companies were on point.
As is typical, the leaders pushing the false premise were very engaging and had a broad audience. Numerous well-intended, purpose-lead leaders bought in to the premise and required their organizations to follow suit.
Here lies the problem. If an organization goes public with such lofty statements where there is no real understanding of purpose you end up with a shallow culture with no loyalty. With a shallow culture and no loyalty, you have mediocrity at best. Do not misunderstand me, there are many organizations that have genuine mission, vision, and values statements. Those companies are well worth paying attention to and learning from. Unfortunately, most just followed suit and had them to have them.
Moral of the story…be genuine in who you are. Whether that means you as the individual or you as the organization. Genuine people and genuine organizations can prevail regardless of whether they have mission, vision, and values posted on their office walls or their websites.
Think about it.