I want to ask you a question…
How many clicks?
How many clicks does it take you on your organization’s website to find your mission, vision, and values?
I was recently at a conference and a participant named Maria was there. Maria had attended a previous workshop that I had run, where I emphasized the importance of mission, vision, and values. I had asked her and the rest of the group that same question- ‘how many clicks?’
She rushed up to me at the second seminar and said that she tried that and had a terrible time finding it. She then convinced her organization to put it on their home page and she finds it very useful now as a tool to align the organization.
Let’s talk for a minute about why mission, vision, and values are important and why you might be concerned if you have to take numerous clicks to find it.
First, as Maria found, it gives the organization alignment.
Everybody needs to think through— is what I’m doing contributing to the overall goal of the organization, its vision for the future, and being consistent with its values?
I worked with the Hilton Corporation out in Asia and ran a series of leadership workshops out there. They had a requirement for senior executives that every one of them had to carry a card, on which was the mission, vision, and values of Hilton. One side was in English and the flip side was in Japanese— because so many of their clients and employees were in fact Japanese.
This was a derivative of the current President & CEO of Hilton Corporation Worldwide, Chris Nassetta. He said when he took over the corporation he was convinced that his 150,000 employees scattered around the globe were all working real hard, but weren’t aligned. He said he spent his first two years going around talking about the mission, vision, and values of the organization just to ensure that we were all pulling the oars of the boat in the same direction. So aligning the organization, aligning everyone with the mission of the organization is one reason.
2. Second, mission, vision, and values serve as an effective tool for strategic planning.
I met with a very senior corporate executive one time and we were talking about opportunities. He said “I can find plenty of opportunities for my corporation. There’s literally hundreds, if not thousands of them. The question is, which one is the best for us?”
I believe the mission, vision, and values of an organization can tell you that. Somebody may rush up to you with a great idea, but you should step back for a second and say “Okay, that’s a great idea, but is it OUR idea? Is it consistent with our mission? Does it move us towards our vision? Is it consistent with our values?”
It still might be a great idea but if it’s not consistent with those things, it’s somebody else’s idea… OR you need to think through perhaps a change to your overall mission for your organization.
3. Thirdly, if leaders don’t talk about the mission, vision, and values, who’s going to?
It’s imperative that they do so to achieve that alignment, to achieve that effort to strategic plan.
So I challenge you, sit down at your computer, go to your organization’s home page and see how many clicks it takes you to find the organization’s mission, vision, and values.
We want to hear from YOU! How many clicks did it take you? Share your comments below.