Opening The Box
Mission Statements, Strategic Plans, SWOTS, Vision and Values. Companies spend an inordinate amount of time, and often money, to analyze, dissect, and perfect these written declarations about the purpose of a company.
Done correctly, they can serve a helpful guiding tools for those looking to learn about what a company stands for and what it does. Sadly, few companies actually understand how to do them correctly, opting instead to write down what they think outsiders (read investors, banks and the like) want to hear.
Still, what purpose do these declarations serve in the company itself? And who should be responsible for creating them?
Too often those creating the dictums of what a company stands for, does, and will do, have little to no knowledge of what the company actually does or how it does it. Aside from a Vision statement, and some would argue even then, shouldn’t those who know the ins and outs of a company, how it accomplishes it’s ‘tasks’ and what the people who do the work stand for (or don’t stand for) be involved in declaring these time intensive corporate standards? Or perhaps they shouldn’t be involved at all.
After all, how many employees in your company can recite the mission statement word for word? How many know the vision statement? Values? Does anyone know what the strategic plan says or even where to go look and find it?
For most companies, certainly not all, the answer is very few, if any.
The challenge comes when companies want to use these often verbose and irrelevant as a measure or standard for how people accomplish their tasks.
Perhaps it’s time we recognize our individual strengths and abilities as employees have far more potential to help organizations than when we try to mold everyone into one method, one application, one mission or one vision.
It is vital that everyone move forward towards a common goal, but how each cog in the wheel arrives at that goal may be as individual as the cogs themselves. Perhaps we should be asking different questions, thinking in new and creative ways about how to embrace those differences and how to efficiently harness those individual strengths.
The workforce is changing, and our company workers are changing more often as well. Having only one thought or one directive through all of these declarative documents may have worked in the past but will they work for the next wave of employees, and the one after that?
Perhaps we should state the goal and then create an environment that allows for new concepts, new ideas, and new innovations rather than trying to fit everyone into one box.
Maybe it’s time to open the box.
Lisa Lee is the author of “The Heart of Teaching.“
Lisa is a 35-year veteran educator with the honors of being named “Teacher of the Year” in DeKalb County, Georgia (2007) and Runner-Up “Teacher of the Year” for Colorado (2017). Over the years, Lisa Lee has taught in Georgia and Colorado elementary, middle, and high school classrooms, with a specialization in Gifted and Talented and a focus on the students who don’t always fit in a box.
An experienced TEDx speaker, Lisa embraces the TEDx platform as a gateway to deliver her messages of connection and relationship building that she so strongly believes in.
Her personal life philosophy is that “We’re put here on the planet to make life better for others. Period.” This belief is the foundation of her messaging in that making connections with others and building community can change lives.
Lisa lives in the Denver, CO area with her wife, 2 grandtwins, and her dog Rosa Barks.
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