Lessons learned in development of vision and mission statements

Abstract

Background: Educational institutions need to formulate vision and mission statements to support the alignment of their decision-making and practices, and also as one of the standards for accreditation. However, “vision” and “mission” are misunderstood terms. Organizations may end up declaring quite vague and fuzzy vision and mission statements not owned by members. What was done: We used Collins and Porras conceptual framework for development of vision and mission statements for five constituent institutes of our university. We carried out Process Documentation (PD) of the activity of formulating these statements. We took the following steps: rapport-building, identifying focus, facilitation of process identification, reflection, and closure. A month later, we invited the participants in this activity to reflect on the entire process. We carried out an inductive thematic analysis of text data generated during guided group discussions, and the participants' reflections. Lessons learned: To begin with, the participants lacked clarity and ownership of the process, which progressively improved over the course of the activity. The participants felt that several factors contributing to the formulation of the statements were: setting the stage and use of a conceptual framework; probing questions and handholding by the facilitators; and the collective exercise. We, as facilitators, felt that the use of an iterative group process, thoughtful probes by us, and an environment conducive for open exchange of ideas contributed to the development of the statements. We documented ten steps for the development of the vision and mission statements, which might be useful for any academic medical center tasked with a similar activity.