Sense of Mission and Strategy Implementation

In this edition of the practical application of value for money principles Series No 4, the concept of a “sense of Mission” is in our exploration of strategy as a cornerstone of transaction/programme logic in the quest to Do More with Less.

Having established the VVMOSSET Model as the cornerstone of strategy and explained the four elements of Mission – Purpose, Strategy, Structures (Systems/Policies) and Values, it became established that a management or team of   clearly defined mission will outperform a team of a defined strategy only.

While the team with a defined mission will always be guided by values and strategic concepts entrenched in commercial and emotional/moral logic on important decisions, the team that has a defined strategy only will be ingrained only with commercial logic. Consequently, a company with a clear mission and strong values will have the capacity to produce employees of with a “sense of mission”

In terms of values, two rationales come into play – Rational Commercial logic and Emotional/Moral/ethical logic- and they both link purpose to bahaviour. Rational Commercial logic is essentially about strategy and what will help the business outperform its competitors while emotional/moral/ethical logic is about values and the sort of behaviour that is ethical to be applied to employees and the public. It, for instance, underlines the right way to treat people and to engage with stakeholder   public.

 Two Reasons for Action

Generally, a sense of mission is an emotional commitment by people in an organisation (management and employees). It happens on a very personal level when there is a match between the values of the organisation and those of the individuals and they become  identified as “shared values”

A Sense of Mission comes from a Value Match

Why is this so?

Individually, people try to make continuous judgement to such puzzles as “does this organisation care about the sort of thing that I care about? “Because organisational values are rarely explicit, the individual evaluates them through the company’s behaviour standards. For example, if the standards are about cooperative working, the employer will sense that helpfulness is valued above individual competition.

If it does, then, there is a potential for developing an Emotional Commitment.

Emotional commitment comes when an individual personally identifies with the values and behaviours lying behind a plan that turns strategy into mission and a sense of mission. On the contrary, support from the individual comes in a grudge, arising from a contract of so much work for so much pay.

Employees would certainly develop emotional attachment to their work and their organisation when their values match those of the organisation. However there could be key limitations, which most often come in two folds.

One, it’s practically impossible to have all employees with a sense of mission, particularly in a big organisation. Secondly, recruiting with absolute care is most essential. When a company recruits people with compatible values, it could foster a sense of mission with ease.

A Sense of Mission in an organisation arouses tremendous benefits, including the fact that employees with a sense of mission are usually more committed, more disciplined and more open to change than others.

A sense of mission fuels loyalty and commitment, being the energy, commitment and enthusiasm that employees feel about their companies. This form of emotional commitment leads to greater dedication and willingness to sacrifice personal interests to the good of the whole.

Employees with a sense of mission are more unlikely to say…”it is not my job, it’s someone else’s problem, it’s 5pm, and it will have to wait till tomorrow.”  Their ability to identify personally with the company means that anything that reflects badly on the company reflects badly on them and vice versa. They become “the ears, eyes and brains” of the organisation.  Most often, long term employment is a striking characteristic of companies where the employees have a sense of mission. The employees commonly likened the organisation to an extended family…. Confessing that they had stayed longer than they had intended to.

And because companies with strong missions have usually very strong norms and cultures, employees are found to take recourse to very clear behavioural standards, which encourage cooperation among them and ensure that clients are treated in consistent ways and manner that help to mold organisational managerial styles and behaviour. Managers in an organisation of strong culture give considerable attention to what is stressed in the corporate value system, which in turn produces extraordinary results.

But be careful and bear in mind that a sense of mission could work both ways. It should be borne in mind that strong organisational values and behaviour norms can be advantageous and disadvantageous as strong values can become powerful influence over behaviour. It then becomes necessary that values are right and timeless as much as possible, not forgetting that a strong commitment to values could cause reduction in performance or resistance to change.

In conclusion, as a bedrock of the importance of creating a sense of mission in an organization, it is important to realise that people are not the organisation’s greatest asset of the company but the right people are the greatest asset. The right people do not just happen in an organisation but are produced through a sense of mission when the values of the company align with those of its people.

You can deliver on strategic objectives if you apply the value for money principles and create a sense of mission in your team