Republic of the Philippines

BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY

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Chapter 3: Developing Mission, Vision and Values

Module 5

At the end of this chapter, you will be able to:

1. Understand the roles of mission, vision, and values in the planning process.
2. Understand how mission and vision fit into the planning-organizing-leading-controlling (POLC)
framework.
3. Develop and apply mission, vision, and values to your personal goals and professional career.

Good mission and vision statements should invoke a desirable future and create uneasiness with the
status quo.

Introduction

As you are reminded in the figure, the letter “P” in the P-O-L-C framework stands for “planning.”
Good plans are meant to achieve something—this something is captured in verbal and written
statements of an organization’s mission and vision (its purpose, in addition to specific goals and
objectives). With a mission and vision, you can craft a strategy for achieving them, and your benchmarks
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
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for judging your progress and success are clear goals and objectives. Mission and vision communicate
the organization’s values and purpose, and the best mission and vision statements have an emotional
component in that they incite employees to delight customers. The three “planning” topics of your
principles of management cover:

(1) mission and vision,

(2) strategy, and

(3) goals and objectives.

Mission and Vision in the Planning Process

I. The Roles of Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission, Vision, and Values

Mission and vision both relate to an organization’s purpose and are typically communicated in
some written form. Mission and vision are statements from the organization that answer questions
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
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about who we are, what do we value, and where we’re going. A study by the consulting firm Bain and
Company reports that 90% of the 500 firms surveyed issue some form of mission and vision statements.
Moreover, firms with clearly communicated, widely understood, and collectively shared mission and
vision have been shown to perform better than those without them, with the caveat that they related to
effectiveness only when strategy and goals and objectives were aligned with them as well.

A mission statement communicates the organization’s reason for being, and how it aims to serve its
key stakeholders. Customers, employees, and investors are the stakeholders most often emphasized,
but other stakeholders like government or communities (i.e., in the form of social or environmental
impact) can also be discussed. Mission statements are often longer than vision statements. Sometimes
mission statements also include a summation of the firm’s values. Values are the beliefs of an individual
or group, and in this case the organization, in which they are emotionally invested. The Starbucks
mission statement describes six guiding principles that, as you can see, also communicate the
organization’s values:

1. Provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity.
2. Embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business.
3. Apply the highest standards of excellence to the purchasing, roasting and fresh delivery of our
coffee.
4. Develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.
5. Contribute positively to our communities and our environment.
6. Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success.

Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus.

Similarly, Toyota declares its global corporate principles to be:

1. Honor the language and spirit of the law of every nation and undertake open and fair corporate
activities to be a good corporate citizen of the world.
2. Respect the culture and customs of every nation and contribute to economic and social
development through corporate activities in the communities.
3. Dedicate ourselves to providing clean and safe products and to enhancing the quality of life
everywhere through all our activities.
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4. Create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services that
fulfill the needs of customers worldwide.
5. Foster a corporate culture that enhances individual creativity and teamwork value, while
honoring mutual trust and respect between labor and management.
6. Pursue growth in harmony with the global community through innovative management.
7. Work with business partners in research and creation to achieve stable, long-term growth and
mutual benefits, while keeping ourselves open to new partnerships.

Retrieved October 27, 2008, from http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/vision/philosophy.

A vision statement, in contrast, is a future-oriented declaration of the organization’s purpose

and aspirations. In many ways, you can say that the mission statement lays out the organization’s
“purpose for being,” and the vision statement then says, “Based on that purpose, this is what we want
to become.” The strategy should flow directly from the vision, since the strategy is intended to achieve
the vision and thus satisfy the organization’s mission. Typically, vision statements are relatively brief, as
in the case of Starbuck’s vision statement, which reads: “Establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of
the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our uncompromising principles as we grow.” Sometimes
the vision statement is also captured in a short tag line, such as Toyota’s “moving forward” statement
that appears in most communications to customers, suppliers, and employees.

Any casual tour of business or organization Web sites will expose you to the range of forms that
mission and vision statements can take. To reiterate, mission statements are longer than vision
statements, often because they convey the organizations core values.

 Mission statements answer the questions of “Who are we?” and “What does our organization
value?”
 Vision statements typically take the form of relatively brief, future-oriented statements—vision
statements answer the question “Where is this organization going?”
 Organizations also add a values statement which either reaffirms or states outright the
organization’s values that might not be evident in the mission or vision statements.
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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Roles Played by Mission and Vision

Mission and vision statements play three critical roles:

a. communicate the purpose of the organization to stakeholders,

b. inform strategy development, and
c. develop the measurable goals and objectives by which to gauge the success of the
organization’s strategy.

Key Roles of Mission and Vision

First, mission and vision provide a vehicle for communicating an organization’s purpose and
values to all key stakeholders. Stakeholders are those key parties who have some influence over the
organization or stake in its future. Some key stakeholders are employees, customers, investors,
suppliers, and institutions such as governments. Typically, these statements would be widely circulated
and discussed often so that their meaning is widely understood, shared, and internalized. The better
employees understand an organization’s purpose, through its mission and vision, the better able they
will be to understand the strategy and its implementation.

Second, mission and vision create a target for strategy development. That is, one criterion of a
good strategy is how well it helps the firm achieve its mission and vision. To better understand the
relationship among mission, vision, and strategy, it is sometimes helpful to visualize them collectively as
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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a funnel. At the broadest part of the funnel, you find the inputs into the mission statement. Toward the
narrower part of the funnel, you find the vision statement, which has distilled down the mission in a way
that it can guide the development of the strategy. In the narrowest part of the funnel you find the
strategy —it is clear and explicit about what the firm will do, and not do, to achieve the vision. Vision
statements also provide a bridge between the mission and the strategy. In that sense the best vision
statements create a tension and restlessness with regard to the status quo—that is, they should foster a
spirit of continuous innovation and improvement.

Third, mission and vision provide a high-level guide, and the strategy provides a specific guide,
to the goals and objectives showing success or failure of the strategy and satisfaction of the larger set of
objectives stated in the mission. In the cases of both Starbucks and Toyota, you would expect to see
profitability goals, in addition to metrics on customer and employee satisfaction, and social and
environmental responsibility.

II. Mission and Vision in the P-O-L-C Framework

Mission and vision play such a prominent role in the planning facet of the P-O-L-C framework.
However, you are probably not surprised to learn that their role does not stop there. Beyond the
relationship between mission and vision, strategy, and goals and objectives, you should expect to see
mission and vision being related to the organizing, leading, and controlling aspects as well. Let’s look at
these three areas in turn.
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Mission, Vision, and Organizing

Organizing is the function of management that involves developing an organizational structure and
allocating human resources to ensure the accomplishment of objectives. The organizing facet of the P-
O-L-C framework typically includes subjects such as organization design, staffing, and organizational
culture. With regard to organizing, it is useful to think about alignment between the mission and vision
and various organizing activities. For instance, organizational design is a formal, guided process for
integrating the people, information, and technology of an organization. It is used to match the form of
the organization as closely as possible to the purpose(s) the organization seeks to achieve. Through the
design process, organizations act to improve the probability that the collective efforts of members will
be successful.

Organization design should reflect and support the strategy—in that sense, organizational design is a set
of decision guidelines by which members will choose appropriate actions, appropriate in terms of their
support for the strategy. Strategy is derived from the mission and vision statements and from the
organization’s basic values. Strategy unifies the intent of the organization and focuses members toward
actions designed to accomplish desired outcomes. The strategy encourages actions that support the
purpose and discourages those that do not.

To organize, you must connect people with each other in meaningful and purposeful ways. Further, you
must connect people—human resources—with the information and technology necessary for them to
be successful. Organization structure defines the formal relationships among people and specifies both
their roles and their responsibilities. Administrative systems govern the organization through guidelines,
procedures, and policies. Information and technology define the process(es) through which members
achieve outcomes. Each element must support each of the others, and together they must support the
organization’s purpose, as reflected in its mission and vision.

Organizational culture is the workplace environment formulated from the interaction of the employees
in the workplace. Organizational culture is defined by all of the life experiences, strengths, weaknesses,
education, upbringing, and other attributes of the employees. While executive leaders play a large role
in defining organizational culture by their actions and leadership, all employees contribute to the
organizational culture.

As you might imagine, achieving alignment between mission and vision and organizational culture can
be very powerful, but culture is also difficult to change. This means that if you are seeking to change
your vision or mission, your ability to change the organization’s culture to support those new directions
may be difficult, or, at least, slow to achieve.

Social networks are often referred to as the “invisible organization.” They consist of individuals or
organizations connected by one or more specific types of interdependency. You are probably already
active in social networks through such Web communities as Facebook and LinkedIn. However, these
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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sites are really only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the emerging body of knowledge
surrounding social networks. Networks deliver three unique advantages: access to “private” information
(i.e., information that companies do not want competitors to have), access to diverse skill sets, and
power. You may be surprised to learn that many big companies have breakdowns in communications
even in divisions where the work on one project should be related to work on another. Managers see
these three network advantages at work every day but might not pause to consider how their networks
regulate them.

Mission, Vision, and Leading

Leading involves influencing others toward the attainment of organizational objectives. Leading and
leadership are nearly synonymous with the notions of mission and vision. We might describe a very
purposeful person as being “on a mission.”

Any task—whether launching Silk or building the Disney empire— is that much more difficult if
attempted alone. Therefore, the more that a mission or vision challenges the status quo—and
recognizing that good vision statements always need to create some dissonance with the status
quo—the greater will be the organization’s need of what leadership researcher Shiba calls “real change
leaders”—people who will help diffuse the revolutionary philosophy even while the leader (i.e., the
founder or CEO) is not present. Without real change leaders, a revolutionary vision would remain a mere
idea of the visionary CEO—they are the ones who make the implementation of the transformation real.
Republic of the Philippines
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In most cases where we think of revolutionary companies, we associate the organization’s vision with its
leader—for instance, Apple and Steve Jobs, Dell and Michael Dell, or Google with the team of Sergey
Brin and Larry Page. Most important, in all three of these organizations, the leaders focused on creating
an organization with a noble mission that enabled the employees and management team to achieve not
only the strategic breakthrough but to also realize their personal dreams in the process. Speaking to the
larger relationship between mission, vision, strategy, and leadership, are the Eight principles of visionary
leadership, derived from Shiba’s 2001 book, Four Practical Revolutions in Management.
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Vision That Pervades the Organization

A broader definition of visionary leadership suggests that, if many or most of an organization’s

employees understand and identify with the mission and vision, efficiency will increase because the
organization’s members “on the front lines” will be making decisions fully aligned with the
organization’s goals. Efficiency is achieved with limited hands-on supervision because the mission and
vision serve as a form of cruise control. To make frontline responsibility effective, leadership must learn
to trust workers and give them sufficient opportunities to develop quality decision-making skills.

Mission and vision are also relevant to leadership well beyond the impact of one or several top
executives. Even beyond existing employees, various stakeholders—customers, suppliers, prospective
new employees—are visiting organizations’ Web sites to read their mission and vision statements. In the
process, they are trying to understand what kind of organization they are reading about and what the
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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organization’s values and ethics are. Ultimately, they are seeking to determine whether the organization
and what it stands for are a good fit for them.

Vision, Mission, and Controlling

Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards. Controlling consists of
three steps: (1) establishing performance standards, (2) comparing actual performance against
standards, and (3) taking corrective action when necessary. Mission and vision are both directly and
indirectly related to all three steps.

Performance Standards

Recall that mission and vision tell a story about an organization’s purpose and aspirations. Mission and
vision statements are often ambiguous by design because they are intended to inform the strategy
not be the strategy. Nevertheless, those statements typically provide a general compass heading for the
organization and its employees. For instance, vision may say something about innovativeness, growth,
or firm performance, and the firm will likely have set measurable objectives related to these.
Performance standards often exceed actual performance but, ideally, managers will outline a set of
metrics that can help to predict the future, not just evaluate the past.

It is helpful to think about such metrics as leading, lagging, and pacing indicators. A leading
indicator actually serves to predict where the firm is going, in terms of performance. For instance,
General Electric asks customers whether they will refer it new business, and GE’s managers have found
that this measure of customer satisfaction does a pretty good job of predicting future sales. A pacing
indicator tells you in real time that the organization is on track, for example, in on-time deliveries or
machinery that is in operation (as opposed to being under repair or in maintenance). A lagging
indicator is the one we are all most familiar with. Firm financial performance, for instance, is an
accounting-based summary of how well the firm has done historically. Even if managers can calculate
such performance quickly, the information is still historic and not pacing or leading. Increasingly, firms
compile a set of such leading, lagging, and pacing goals and objectives and organize them in the form of
a dashboard or Balanced Scorecard.

Actual Versus Desired Performance

The goals and objectives that flow from your mission and vision provide a basis for assessing actual
versus desired performance. In many ways, such goals and objectives provide a natural feedback loop
that helps managers see when and how they are succeeding and where they might need to take
corrective action. This is one reason goals and objectives should ideally be specific and measurable.
Moreover, to the extent that they serve as leading, lagging, and pacing performance metrics, they
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enable managers to take corrective action on any deviations from goals before too much damage has
been done.

Corrective Action

Finally, just as mission and vision should lead to specific and measurable goals and objectives and thus
provide a basis for comparing actual and desired performance, corrective action should also be
prompted in cases where performance deviates negatively from performance objectives. It is important
to point out that while mission and vision may signal the need for corrective action, because they are
rather general, high-level statements they typically will not spell out what specific actions—that latter
part is the role of strategy, and mission and vision are critical for good strategies but not substitutes for
them. A mission and vision are statements of self-worth. Their purpose is not only to motivate
employees to take meaningful action but also to give leadership a standard for monitoring progress. It
also tells external audiences how your organization wishes to be viewed and have its progress and
successes gauged.

Strategic human resources management (SHRM) reflects the aim of integrating the organization’s
human capital—its people—into the mission and vision. Human resources management alignment
means to integrate decisions about people with decisions about the results an organization is trying to
obtain. Research indicates that organizations that successfully align human resources management with
mission and vision accomplishment do so by integrating SHRM into the planning process, emphasizing
human resources activities that support mission goals, and building strong human
resources/management capabilities and relationships.
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BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
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III. Crafting Mission and Vision Statements

Communicating and Monitoring Mission and Vision

At this point, you have an understanding of what a mission and vision statement is and how
creativity, passion, and stakeholder interests might be accounted for. The actual step-by-step process of
developing a mission and vision might start with the mission and vision statements, but you should think
of this process more broadly in terms of multiple steps:

(1) the process,

(2) the content of the mission and vision statements,

(3) communicating mission and vision to all relevant stakeholders, and

(4) monitoring.
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Mission and vision statements are statements of an organization’s purpose and potential; what
you want the organization to become. Both statements should be meaningful to you and your
organization. It should be shared with all of the employees in the organization to create a unified
direction for everyone to move in.

While crafting a mission and vision is not easy, it helps to follow the right steps.

Process, Content, Application, and Monitoring in Mission and Vision Development

PROCESS

 Let the business drive the mission and vision.

 Involve all stakeholders in its development; otherwise, they won’t consider it theirs.

 Assign responsibility so that it’s clear how each person, including each stakeholder, can
contribute.

 Seek expert facilitation to reach a vision supported by all.

 Revise and reiterate; you’ll likely go through multiple iterations before you’re satisfied.
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CONTENT

 Start from where you are to get to where you want to go.

 Build in the values of the organization: Every organization has a soul. Tap into yours, and adjust
as needed. Mission and vision built on your values will not just hold promise but also deliver on
it.

 Build on the core competencies of the organization: A mission and vision are useless if they
can’t be put into operation. This requires recognition of your organization’s strengths and
weaknesses.

 Factor in your style: A mission and vision must reflect the leader’s style. You can’t sustain action
that goes against it.

 Make it visual: A picture is worth a thousand words.

 Make it simple to understand: Complex language and disconnected statements have little
impact—people can’t implement what they don’t understand.

 Make it achievable: A mission and vision are an organization’s dreams for the future.
Unachievable goals discourage people.

 Phase it in: Reach for the sky—in stages.

 Make it actionable: If it’s too abstract, no one knows what to do next.

COMMUNICATE

 Communicate often: Internal communications are the key to success. People need to see the
mission and vision, identify with them, and know that leadership is serious about it.

 Create messages that relate to the audience: To adopt a mission and vision, people must see
how they can achieve it, and what’s in it for them.

 Create messages that inspire action: It’s not what you say, but how you say it.
Republic of the Philippines
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APPLICATION

 Use it: Beyond printing it, posting it, and preaching it, you also need to practice what is laid out
in the mission and vision…“walk the talk”

 Live it: Management must lead by example.

 Be real: It’s better to adjust the mission statement as needed than to not live up to the
standards it sets.

MONITORING

 Identify key milestones: While traveling to your destination, acknowledge the milestones along
the way.

 Monitor your progress: A strategic audit, combined with key metrics, can be used to measure
progress against goals and objectives.

 Use external audit team: An external team brings objectivity, plus a fresh perspective.
Republic of the Philippines
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IV. Developing Your Personal Mission and Vision

Mission and vision are concepts that can be applied to you, personally, well beyond their broader
relevance to the P-O-L-C framework. Personal mission and vision communicate the direction in which
you are headed, as well as providing some explanation for why you are choosing one direction or set of
objectives over others. Thinking about and writing down mission and vision statements for your life can
help provide you with a compass as you work toward your own goals and objectives.

Your Mission and Vision

Note that the development of a personal mission and vision, and then a strategy for achieving
them, are exactly the opposite of what most people follow. Most people do not plan further ahead than
their next job or activity (if they plan their career at all). They take a job because it looks attractive, and
then they see what they can do with it. We advocate looking as far into the future as you can and
deciding where you want to end up and what steps will lead you there. In that way, your life and your
career fit into some intelligent plan, and you are in control of your own life.

Your mission and vision reflect your personal and professional purpose and direction.

Guidelines

The first step in planning a career is obviously a long-term goal. Where do you want to end up,
ultimately? Do you really want to be a CEO or president of the Philippines, now that you know what it
costs to be either one? There are a couple basic parts to this process.
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BHAG

First, set out a bold vision—Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, describes this as a BHAG a big, hairy,
audacious goal.

Five guiding criteria for good BHAGs is that they:

1. Are set with understanding, not bravado.

2. Fit squarely in the three circles of (a) what you are deeply passionate about (including your core
values and purpose), (b) what drives your economic logic, and (c) what differentiates you (what
you can be the best in the world at).
3. Have a long time frame—10 to 30 years.
4. Are clear, compelling, and easy to grasp.
5. Directly reflect your core values and core purpose.

Values

Second, sketch out your personal values, or “Guiding Philosophy”—a set of core values and principles
like your own Declaration of Independence.

Schedule

Once the vision is set, you have to develop some long-term goal (or goals), then intermediate-term
goals, and so on. If you want to be President, what jobs will you have to take first to get there and when
do you have to get these jobs? Where should you live? What training do you need? What political
connections do you need? Then you have to set up an orderly plan for obtaining the connections and
training that you need and getting into these steppingstone jobs.

Finally, you need to establish short-term goals to fit clearly into a coherent plan for your entire career.
Your next job (if you are now a fairly young person) should be picked not only for its salary or for its
opportunities for advancement but for its chances to provide you with the training and connections you
need to reach your long-term goals. The job that is superficially attractive to you because it has a high
salary, offers the opportunity for immediate advancement, or is located in a desirable place may be a
mistake from the standpoint of your long-term career.
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The Five-Step Plan (Randall S. Hansen, PhD)

Mission and vision statements are designed to provide direction and thrust to an organization, an
enduring statement of purpose. A mission and vision statement act as an invisible hand that guides the
people in the organization. A mission and vision statement explains the organization’s reason for being
and answers the question, “What business are we in?”

A personal mission and vision statement is a bit different from a company mission statement, but the
fundamental principles are the same. Writing a personal mission and vision statement offers the
opportunity to establish what’s important and perhaps make a decision to stick to it before we even
start a career. Or it enables us to chart a new course when we’re at a career crossroads. Steven Covey
(in First Things First) refers to developing a mission and vision statement as “connecting with your own
unique purpose and the profound satisfaction that comes from fulfilling it.”Covey, S. R. (1994). First
Things First. New York: Simon & Schuster.

A personal mission and vision statement helps job seekers identify their core values and beliefs. Michael
Goodman (in The Potato Chip Difference: How to Apply Leading Edge Marketing Strategies to Landing
the Job You Want) states that a personal mission statement is “an articulation of what you’re all about
and what success looks like to you.” A personal mission and vision statement also allows job seekers to
identify companies that have similar values and beliefs and helps them better assess the costs and
benefits of any new career opportunity.

The biggest problem most job seekers face is not in wanting to have a personal mission and vision
statement but actually writing it. So, to help you get started on your personal mission and vision
statement, here is a five-step mission/vision-building process. Take as much time on each step as you
need, and remember to dig deeply to develop a mission and vision statement that is both authentic and
honest. To help you better see the process, Professor Hansen included an example of one friend’s
process in developing her mission and vision statements.

Sample Personal Mission Statement Development

1. Past success:

 developed new product features for stagnant product

 part of team that developed new positioning statement for product

 helped child’s school with fundraiser that was wildly successful

 increased turnout for the opening of a new local theatre company

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Themes: Successes all relate to creative problem solving and execution of a solution.
1. Core values:

 Hard working

 Industrious

 Creativity

 Problem solving

 Decision maker

 Friendly

 Outgoing

 Positive

 Family-oriented

 Honest

 Intelligent

 Compassionate

 Spiritual

 Analytical

 Passionate

 Contemplative

Most important values:

 Problem solving

 Creativity

 Analytical

 Compassionate

 Decision maker
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
_____________________________________________________________________________________

 Positive

Most important value:

 Creativity

2. Identify Contributions:

 the world in general: develop products and services that help people achieve what they want
in life. To have a lasting effect on the way people live their lives.

 my family: to be a leader in terms of personal outlook, compassion for others, and

maintaining an ethical code; to be a good mother and a loving wife; to leave the world a
better place for my children and their children.

 my employer or future employers: to lead by example and demonstrate how innovative and
problem-solving products can be both successful in terms of solving a problem and successful
in terms of profitability and revenue generation for the organization.

 my friends: to always have a hand held out for my friends; for them to know they can always
come to me with any problem.

 my community: to use my talents in such a way as to give back to my community.

3. Identify Goals:
Short term: To continue my career with a progressive employer that allows me to use my
skills, talent, and values to achieve success for the firm.
Long term: To develop other outlets for my talents and develop a longer-term plan for
diversifying my life and achieving both professional and personal success.
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
_____________________________________________________________________________________
4. Mission Statement:
To live life completely, honestly, and compassionately, with a healthy dose of realism mixed
with the imagination and dreams that all things are possible if one sets their mind to finding
an answer.
Vision Statement:
To be the CEO of a firm that I start, that provides educational exercise experiences to K–6
schools. My company will improve children’s health and fitness, and create a lasting positive
impact on their lives, and that of their children.

Step 1: Identify Past Successes. Spend some time identifying four or five examples where you have had
personal success in recent years. These successes could be at work, in your community, or at home.
Write them down. Try to identify whether there is a common theme—or themes—to these examples.
Write them down.

Step 2: Identify Core Values. Develop a list of attributes that you believe identify who you are and what
your priorities are. The list can be as long as you need. Once your list is complete, see whether you can
narrow your values to five or six most important values. Finally, see whether you can choose the one
value that is most important to you. We’ve added “Generating Ideas for Your Mission and Vision” to
help jog your memory and brainstorm about what you do well and really like to do.

Step 3: Identify Contributions. Make a list of the ways you could make a difference. In an ideal situation,
how could you contribute best to:

 the world in general

 your family

 your employer or future employers

 your friends

 your community

Generating Ideas for Your Mission and Vision

Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
_____________________________________________________________________________________
A useful mission and vision statement should include two pieces: what you wish to accomplish and
contribute and who you want to be, the character strengths and qualities you wish to develop. While
this sounds simple, those pieces of information are not always obvious. Try these tools for generating
valuable information about yourself.

Part I

1. Describe your ideal day. This is not about being practical. It is designed to include as many
sides of you and your enthusiasms as possible: creative, competent, artistic, introverted,
extraverted, athletic, playful, nurturing, contemplative, and so on.
2. Imagine yourself 132 years old and surrounded by your descendants or those descendants of
your friends. You are in a warm and relaxed atmosphere (such as around a fireplace). What
would you say to them about what is important in life? This exercise is designed to access the
values and principles that guide your life.
3. Imagine that it is your 70th birthday (or another milestone in your life). You have been asked
by national print media to write a press release about your achievements. Consider what you
would want your family, friends, co-workers in your profession and in your community to say
about you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? How do you want to
be remembered? This is designed to inventory your actions and accomplishments in all areas
of your life.

Part II

Review your notes for these three exercises. With those responses in mind, reflect on questions 1, 2,
and 3 above. Then write a rough draft (a page of any length) of your mission statement. Remember
that it should describe what you want to do and who you want to be. This is not a job description.
Carry it with you, post copies in visible places at home and work, and revise and evaluate. Be patient
with yourself. The process is as important as the outcome. After a few weeks, write another draft. Ask
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
_____________________________________________________________________________________
yourself whether your statement was based on proven principles that you believe in, if you feel
direction, motivation, and inspiration when you read it. Over time, reviewing and evaluating will keep
you abreast of your own development.

Step 4: Identify Goals. Spend some time thinking about your priorities in life and the goals you have for
yourself. Make a list of your personal goals, perhaps in the short term (up to three years) and the long
term (beyond three years).

Step 5: Write Mission and Vision Statements. On the basis of the first four steps and a better
understanding of yourself, begin writing your personal mission and vision statements.

Final thoughts: A personal mission and vision statement is, of course, personal. But if you want to see
whether you have been honest in developing your personal mission and vision statement, we suggest
sharing the results of this process with one or more people who are close to you. Ask for their feedback.
Finally, remember that mission and vision statements are not meant to be written once and blasted into
stone. You should set aside some time annually to review your career, job, goals, and mission and vision
statements—and make adjustments as necessary.

Activity 5

1. Create your own mission, vision, and values that you want to apply to your personal goals and
professional career.
Republic of the Philippines
BICOL STATE COLLEGE OF APPLIED SCIENCES and TECHNOLOGY
City of Naga
Telephone No. (054) 4720416 Loc. 123
Fax No. (054) 4720415
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Sources: Bart, C. K., & Baetz, M. C. (1998). The relationship between mission statements and firm
performance: An exploratory study. Journal of Management Studies, 35, 823–853.

Bart, C. K., Bontis, N., & Taggar, S. (2001). A model of the impact of mission statements on firm
performance. Management Decision, 39(1), 19–35.

Gerhart, B. A., & Rynes, S. L. (2003). Compensation: Theory, Evidence, and Strategic Implications.
Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage;