I love those things. I loved them when they first became popular, I loved them when it turned out that they were way harder to do than they were to write, and I love them now, when they are for the most part meaningless. I think that life (It's life, Jim, but not as we know it) is so difficult and complex and just generally distracting that its nice to have a touchstone to be able to look at every so often, just to be able to say 'Are we doing that?' Occasionally, you can even say 'Do we still believe that?' Granted, neither of those is likely to occur with any kind of routine, the second even less than the first. No one likes having to question what are supposed to be the core verities of their lives, and when you're asking 'do we still believe that', thats just exactly what you're doing.
People (serious people) have made careers out of these things -- describing them, analyzing them, explaining them, showing why this kind is Good and that kind is Bad. I'm a simple guy, and I think simply, as a rule (and yeah, I know that simply doesn't always mean Right). I think of Vision statements as a way of saying 'this is what we're all about; this is why we exist, period'. Mission statements, I think of as somewhat more tactical; they say 'Here's the kind of things we're going to do, the values we're going to espouse, the ways in which we're going to act'. I don't think that vision statements buy you all that much. Mission statements, I think, give you more bang for the buck. If you believe in Vision statements, you might not agree. Certainly, given the choice, I'd prefer a position as a Visionary than a Missionary -- pays better, and you get to be on talk shows -- but thats just me. As far as actual content, I prefer the latter.
In the article I mentioned, the kids were asked if the school's vision statement was true. Most of them did not. (This did not go over particularly well with the school administration, which is what the article is actually about). I just asked my daughter if her school has a mission statement, and she said that she thought it might be the Code of Conduct (I will not lie, cheat, or steal, but waterboarding is okay -- no, wait, that's not right). I remember reading it, once, while I was at the school; it stick to my intellectual ribs the way that Jello sticks to your physical ones. Looked good, insubstantial as all hell.
The thing is, we all find it easier to say good things than to do them, and life sometimes gets in the way. We get actively offended when people say that we aren't doing what we so loudly proclaimed, at the twilight's last gleaming, to be totally key and basic to our lives. We sometimes find it helpful to hedge, in that regard. A local cleaners used to have a big sign about how their customers happiness was the Most Important Thing. There were about ten qualifiers after that, though, which substantially reduced the impact of the statement. Then again, given the recent experience of that cleaners down in DC with the missing pants and the belligerent judge/customer, perhaps thats a good thing. Maybe mission statements should have that kind of qualifier.
(*) We will do all of the above except for the parts that are difficult; those, maybe.
Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
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