Page 41 - 6484

KEY TAKEAWAY
In addition to being a key part of the planning process, mission and
vision also play key roles in the organizing, leading, and controlling functions
of management. While mission and vision start the planning function, they are

best realized when accounted for across all four functions of management—P-
O-L-C. In planning, mission and vision help to generate specific goals and
objectives and to develop the strategy for achieving them. Mission and vision
guide choices about organizing, too, from structure to organizational culture.
The cultural dimension is one reason mission and vision are most effective
when they pervade the leadership of the entire organization, rather than being
just the focus of senior management. Finally, mission and vision are tied to the
three key steps of controlling: (1) establishing performance standards, (2)
comparing actual performance against standards, and (3) taking corrective
action when necessary. Since people make the place, ultimately strategic
human resources management must bring these pieces together.
EXERCISES
1. How might mission and vision influence organizational design?
2. How might mission and vision influence leadership practices?
3. Why might a specific replacement CEO candidate be a good or poor
choice for a firm with an existing mission and vision?
4. Which aspects of controlling do mission and vision influence?
5. Why are mission and vision relevant to the management of internal
organizational social networks?
6. What performance standards might reinforce a firm’s mission and
vision?
7. What is the role of mission and vision with strategic human resource
management?

4.3 Creativity and Passion
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand how creativity relates to vision.
2. Develop some creativity tools.
3. Understand how passion relates to vision.
Creativity and passion are of particular relevance to mission and vision
statements. A simple definition of creativity is the power or ability to invent. We
sometimes think of creativity as being a purely artistic attribute, but creativity in
business is the essence of innovation and progress. Passion at least in the context we
invoke here, refers to an intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.
Passion is also associated with intense emotion compelling action. We will focus
mostly on the relationship between creativity, passion, and vision in this section
because organizational visions are intended to create uneasiness with the status quo
and help inform and motivate key stakeholders to move the organization forward.
This means that a vision statement should reflect and communicate something that is
relatively novel and unique, and such novelty and uniqueness are the products of
creativity and passion.

41