How an organization’s mission, vision, and values relate to its strategy

The simple answer is that an organization’s mission, vision, and values are answers to the questions, “What business are we in?” and “Why are we in this business?” There is no reference that corresponds to my opening sentence because after more than 25 years of reading books from Tom Peters, Mark McCormick, Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, Andy Stanley, Stephen Covey, Lee Iacocca, Peter Drucker, Jim Collins, Al Reis, Harvey McKay, Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Dale Carnegie, and many, many others this concept is so ingrained in my mind I could not begin to know if it is a synthesis of many ideas or something one of these men have written. Mission statements are very often platitude-like ideas such as this one from American Standard Company, "Be the best in the eyes of our customers, employees and shareholders" (Fortune 500 Companies, 2012). This company needs to invest heavily in their strategy while trying to fulfill this mission. Strategy, in their case for sure, is something that will hopefully take them from saying they want to “Be the best,” to actually formulating priorities and determining how to address each one to make sure they reach their “Ideal.” When they write the mission statement and express their goal in terms of the big picture, it is strategy that will specify the general directions and priorities (Kaplan, 2001). There is a great contrast to American Standard that comes from the Walt Disney Corporation,

 “The mission of The Walt Disney Company is to be one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content, services and consumer products, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences and related products in the world” (Fortune 500 Companies, 2012).

I really like the specificity of their statement, “one of the world's leading producers and providers of entertainment and information” because it seems to be a much better platform in which to launch a strategy. When forming a strategy to determine how an organization will achieve, or live up to, its mission statement, having one that already points to a tangible objective is helpful. I am not sure how someone might measure which organization is the “best” in their field. Is it through profits, shareholder dividends, market penetration, brand recognition, customer satisfaction, or employee relationships? I am not sure. Some might be stronger than others in different areas, and then it seems to leave us with a subjective decision as to who is really the “best.” However, measuring who “produces and provides the most entertainment,” could be measured in concrete ways. For example, which movie company delivered the most movies, most television programs, sold the most merchandise relating to their brand, or who has acquired a larger audience share are some of the tangible ways to measure.

Saying that to say this, when an organization is trying to develop a strategy it becomes immensely more relatable to the mission and vision of the organization if they offer some tangible goal to help the leadership determine concrete goals and outcomes (Kaplan, 2001).

2. What is meant by strategy as hypothesis?

The strategy that an organization follows is somewhat of an uncertain proposition, and this being the case traveling down the path is done through studied guess-work so to speak. What the organization does, as we would say in East Texas, is to plow new ground. Having not plowed the ground before, a farmer would be making an educated guess (hypothesis) about whether or not plowing the ground and planting (strategy) will produce a profitable harvest (outcome).

However, the key for the farmer would be to clearly understand, and make sure the hired hands understand what he is trying to accomplish. He would also need to align his resources with his strategy to work the new ground. It would not make much sense if the farmer bought the new field, formed a strategy to produce enough to make a profit, but only committed a small riding lawnmower to work the ground. He would need to align everything he had that would enable him to fulfill his goal. Finally, he would need to watch the production and make necessary changes at the time they need to be made. Once again, if he plants a crop requiring X amount of water to yield the best results, he would need to monitor the field and introduce water, or drain water away in order to reach the optimal production level of the field.

My whole scenario is based on the Kaplan idea that strategy implies the movement of an organization from its present position to a desirable but uncertain future position (Kaplan, 2001). The hypotheses occur because the organization has never been to this future place (Kaplan, 2001), and getting there requires making a decision about getting to this place, although based on somewhat on existing knowledge, is still an educated guess (hypothesis).