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What's Your Mission?

Entry 1265, on 2011-01-30 at 19:49:10 (Rating 4, Comments)

As I read newspapers, magazines, and other sources, I often record articles which interest me. I use an iPhone app known as "Genius Scan+" for this. It takes a photo of the article, crops it and corrects any distortion in the photo, and stores the result in a document on the phone. This can also be transferred to services such as Evernote and DropBox.

But that's not what this blog entry is really about. I was scanning through the stuff stored in my "political stories suitable for blogging" folder and found one from a month or two back about submissions for new mission statements for local hospital boards.

I am deeply skeptical of almost every management practice, and the production of mission statements is no exception. They really are a pitiful farce, a waste of time and money, and more a source of wry amusement than inspiration for the people expected to use them as a guide for their work.

To most people they are completely irrelevant. I don't even know whether my workplace has a mission statement, and if it does (it probably does since it's a big, bureaucratic organisation) I wouldn't take the slightest notice of it anyway. And I'm fairly sure my colleagues feel the same way too.

So what really is the point? Why would highly paid bureaucrats have to spend time coming up with some meaningless, frivolous piece of doublespeak like the average mission statement? I guess it's because they're being paid a lot to try to impress bureaucrats further up the hierarchy (and therefore even more out of touch with reality) and what could be more impressive to that sort of person than some pitiful piece of fluff like a mission statement?

In the case described in the newspaper article one nurse was surprised to find that she was the only person to make a suggestion. It as "working to provide humanitarian healthcare for all New Zealanders". In some ways that's OK but it was odd coming from someone living in Queenstown, New Zealand's biggest tourism center, because what is the obligation to non-New Zealanders? Do they not deserve humanitarian healthcare? It's not in the mission statement so I guess not!

Various other suggestions included supporting statements such as "being realistic in our endeavor to provide healthcare to encompass all of New Zealand's cultural and individual differences while bearing in mind monetary constraints" (how inspirational!), and "don't toss out the good ones to save someone else's butt" (yeah, that's going to happen), and "put your egos where they are needed" (only works for people with no ego), and "listen to the people who are really affected by cuts to services" (LOL).

I can't imagine any situation when statements such as these would be any practical help to anyone. For example anyone who already let their ego take control is unlikely to take much notice of the idea that they should put their ego where it is needed. And anyone who indulges in office politics and saves their or other's butts by tossing out the "good ones" is likely to continue on that route no matter what some trite advice might suggest.

But I'm being negative. Would it not be better to offer some ideas of what could be done to improve an organisation's morale and cohesiveness instead of just ridiculing other people's ideas? Yeah sure, but it won't be easy. The problem is that most people who do the real work in modern organisations feel like pawns in a game being played by people who don't know how to win. Well they do know how to win I guess, but they're not playing the game they should be.

For example, in a hospital the managers might be playing the "do what the politicians say even when it's wrong" game, or the "balance the budget and forget the services to patients" game, or the "blame everyone except myself" game. In fact it's these people who might actually benefit from having a mission statement. I would suggest something like this: "I will endeavour to support the people who provide the services in this organisation whatever the consequences". Yeah, that's likely to happen, isn't it?

The person involved with the statements I listed above actually indicated that she was skeptical about the impact any vision statement would have on services. Really? What a surprise!

Comment 1 (2856) by INRI on 2011-02-03 at 21:32:19:

Florence Nightingale took care of people regardless of race. Now nurses care for people regardful of race. The modern nurse is typically practicing to please managers versed in Orwellian double speak.

Comment 2 (2857) by OJB on 2011-02-04 at 10:42:18:

The general impression I get is that modern nurses do a great job (in most cases) despite management bureaucracy and other nonsense. And yes, Florence Nightingale didn't need a mission statement. In fact, can you think of many figures in history who have done something great inspired by a mission statement? I suspect there wouldn't be many!

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