The final values are essential to give meaning and unite the effort towards where the organization is going in the long term, and refer to the type of company that it wants to become, the dimension to be achieved, the differentiation that it is intended to achieve.
The conformation of the final values is done by answering the following questions:
The conformation of the final values is done by answering the following questions
1) Who are we and what does the organization exist for? (mission)
2) Where is the organization heading? (vision)
3) How to get where the company is heading? (strategic objectives)
4) What are customers looking for? (Key Success Factors)
5) How to achieve the key success factors? (Key Result Areas)
The formulation of the mission of the organization.
The concept of mission and its importance is accepted and does not differ much among contemporary authors on the subject. However, in the review of the literature on the subject, some concepts given by relevant authors were selected:
James Stoner in his book Administration states that the mission is the general goal of the organization, based on the premises of planning that justifies the existence of an organization while Peter Drucker points out that it is the lasting statement of objectives that identifies one organization from another Similary.
Félix Martínez Díaz states that the mission has often been confused with the social responsibility of the company. In this sense, Sallenave states: «the responsibility of the company is established in terms of social utility, which implies a value judgment on the eventual contribution of the company to a set of social or political-economic objectives, while the mission of the company is nothing more than a delimitation of the field of action that the leaders set a priori to the company and that does not imply a value judgment…
… The definition of a mission defines the field of action of possible activities, in order to concentrate the resources of the company in a general domain, or directed to a permanent objective. It is important as a guide and discipline »(D. Arellano).
Mission is the raison d'être of the organization, the goal that mobilizes our energies and capabilities. It is the basis for seeking a unity of purpose in leaders and workers in order to develop a sense of belonging. It is the most important and significant contribution to society. Without the clear definition of the mission, no organization can progress. A mission statement is a brief description of the larger purpose, the broader reason that justifies the existence of the organization.
It must guide the course and behavior at all levels of the organization.
A well-formulated mission allows you to guide actions, feelings and gives the image that you know where the organization is going, as well as the support, time and resources associated with it. From the foregoing it follows that the purpose of a mission is not to set out specific goals, but to give a general direction, a philosophy that motivates and guides the development of the organization.
Another debate is the one that has centered around the relationship ends (mission), objectives and goals.
For Sallenave, the purpose is the implicit conception of the "why" of the company or organization and is characterized by its philosophical rather than practical nature. On the other hand, we can think of an ordering of categories (goals, ends and objectives), based on the ultimate purpose of the company: Arellano proposes to distinguish the end as the expression that establishes the space - time where we want to end (D Arellano). This author emphasizes on the mission, not as a datum, not as an attempt to make the imagination completely rational, nor as a simple desire or purpose, but as a concept whose significance lies in the ordering capacity regarding the performance criteria., as well as the recovery of human space from an action like this.
In this regard, the author Salvador García states that the authors on the subject of strategic direction show considerable confusion between the terms vision, objectives, tactical purposes, strategic purpose, mission, goals, ambitions, guiding principles of behavior, etc. and points out that every culturally structured organization must have explicitly defined two large groups of shared values or principles that guide their daily action objectives.
- The final values associated with the vision and mission The instrumental or operational values associated with the way of thinking and doing things with which the organization intends to face the demands of its environment and integrate its internal tensions to achieve its vision and mission. which are revealed in the implementation stage of the organization's strategies.
What gives coherence to an organization is the clarity and consensus of its goals and principles, or what is the same, of its goals and its operational values. Every mission of an organization has two dimensions: one economic and the other social, the second clearly depending on the first. While the economic dimension of the mission refers to the critical need to be profitable, the social one refers to non-specific aspects such as generating employment, developing professionals, as specific aspects according to the sector and the activity in which it is dedicated: teaching, ensuring, etc.
Here are six basic reasons why any organization invests time, resources and creativity to formulate its mission.
1. Ensures relative continuity on the purposes of the organization, avoiding the search for contradictory or conflicting purposes.
2. Lay a general rationale for the allocation of organizational resources.
3. It is the most adequate reference (perhaps the only one) to derive the appropriate formulation of objectives, policies and general strategies, which must be consistent with each other and with the mission.
4. It guides the concentration of the efforts of human talents and other organizational resources in a certain direction, reducing the costly and counterproductive fragmentation that occurs in the absence of an explicit, precise and clear mission.
5. Allows all units of the organization to formulate their specific missions consistent with that of the organization. General formulation is a way to transfer, appropriately and consistently, specific objectives and goals to organizational structures and processes. From this perspective, it is the most appropriate reference to define programs and projects.
6. It allows establishing a general environment and an organizational climate that can serve as a source of attraction and motivation, both internally and externally.
Mission characteristics:
- It must express the service provided by the organization, not the product that it sells. It must be aimed at the development and promotion of positive values in the members of the organization. Oriented towards the outside of the organization, towards the needs of the Society in general. and of individuals. Example: The success of a Security and Protection company lies in the fact that there are no thefts or economic losses for these reasons, the successes are abroad; on the inside, costs, efforts, resources, etc. Oriented towards the long-term future and not towards the short term, much less the past. Not only respond to changes, but they must be promoted. Have credibility, both for the components of the organization and for those who receive the service. Everyone must know, understand and share the Mission. Be simple, clear and direct.Excessively long missions, full of ideas, beautiful purposes, and beautiful words tend not to work. Contain originality. Something different, better, has to be done that distinguishes and fills us with pride and recognition from the people we serve. Be unique. Clarify the social order assigned to the organization that differentiates it from any other. Although it must be broad enough so that it can be broken down into several concrete and measurable objectives that lead us to its fulfillment, have certain intangible and ambitious content. It must be related to practical, specific and achievable results. It is better to achieve what is humanly possible than to try to achieve what is ideally desirable. It must be constantly reviewed, at least every 2 or 3 years and, if necessary, update and redefine it.No human institution is eternal, they all change over time, and even though the mission may be eternal, particular objectives may change.
Mission objectives:
- Prevent changes that will exert a profound influence on the organization Provide employees, customers and others with an identity and understanding of growth units Provide a vehicle to generate and project strategic options Develop positive values in the members of the organization that facilitates the fulfillment of tasks.
Process for the elaboration of the mission:
- Initiation and attention by top management Participation and commitment of other levels of management and worker representatives Preparation of the team in its conceptualization Preparation of the expression of the mission Review and feedback Approval and commitment
Rules for the application of the mission:
- Establish it, honor it and live by it, create an organizational culture Engage new workers Make it visible to all, as a commitment to all Use it in decisions, strategies, structures, systems, styles, and skills Review it periodically.
Once the theoretical aspects of the mission have been analyzed, only the significance that it has for any organization will be added to it, not only as its reason for being, but as the guide for action, the way to channel the efforts of all resources To achieve the end, the expression of all the values that the organization possesses or needs for its contribution to the benefit of society. After its formulation, it is recommended to diagnose it.
The vision.
In the first models of strategic management, vision was not taken into account. In 1991, Dr. Eugenio Yañez González defined the mission as the first step of the model that designed and places the vision after the strategic segmentation, the analysis of internal and external relationships and the scenarios, this model became one of the most common in Cuba and is followed and based on the models of Carlos Lazo Vento, Gliceria Gómez Cevallos and Reynaldo Fernández in their work on territorial strategic management. Technology, as well as in the model of Doctors Fermín Orestes Rodríguez and Sonia Alemañy Ramos.
In the last years of the 90's, authors such as Dr. Angel Luis Portuondo Velez9 and others, placed the vision in second place after the mission was formulated.
In 1997, the authors Joan Goldsmith and Keneth Cloke, in the strategic management model that they contribute, place the vision first and define the mission of the organization in second place. In 1999, in volume 1 of the EASDE Strategic Management magazine, the authors put shared values first and integrate the mission and vision of the organization in second place.
As can be seen in the 90s, there has been a tendency for authors to integrate these elements, however, they are addressed separately as three independent steps, it is the author of the present work's criterion that these three elements must be united to express the final values of the organization.
The vision is a set of values and definition of an ideal desired state to be achieved. The formulation of the vision of organizations has evolved in terms of position in contemporary strategic management models.
The formulation of the vision cannot be considered one more step, but a decisive step, because with the definition of the vision is that the definition of what the organization should be with the minimum acceptable desired state that is posed to the entity is achieved, and therefore it is what allows to establish with precision the definition of a problem objective balance in real feasible terms and, consequently, to shape the strategic formulation of a problem and its solution through the achievement of a desired state,determining whether or not with it there is the possibility of culminating a qualitative transformation of the system that manages to place it beyond the decision-making framework in which the problem moves and turn it into a strategic decision by creating a new problem that exceeds not only the maximum expected operative decision but also the operative problem itself, therefore it must be generated with the heart but strictly objective.
Its main strength does not lie in its anticipated description of the desired future, but in a collective process that substitutes the dream or the indications of a person to become the feasible and shared wishes of a collective. This conception strengthens leadership because the leader manages to transmit and feed back his vision of the future to the collective, sharing the consensus that expresses the collective wishes, desires and interests.
The following steps are recommended for formulating the vision:
- Evaluation of the information. It consists of evaluating all the information obtained in the previous steps, that is, the strengths, weaknesses, threats, opportunities, the outline of the general strategic problem, the general strategic solution and the scenarios with their positive, intermediate and negative variant. Definition and validation of vision. After the analysis of the information, it is recommended to brainstorm ideas through which the expression of the vision will be defined, validating it through techniques to achieve consensus. Feedback and fixation. Finally, it is advisable to carry out a mission vision feedback where it is verified whether the desired result is compatible with the defined mission, if it really contributes to its materialization and if its achievement is in the hands of the organization.
Main shortcomings in determining a vision.
- Define a vision outside the mission, it is necessary after the vision is generated to make it compatible with the mission Insist on figures when they do not appear, the fundamental thing can be qualitative Develop processes for generating ideas without feedback and adjustment Excessive emphasis on external elements, go from what you can to what you want Establish a vision without having performed an analysis of the relationships between internal and external factors.
The key factors for success.
Once the organization knows its reason for being, the next key question to be answered is: What is essential to fulfill its corporate purpose? It is essential for the company to know what need the target audience hopes to satisfy, what it values and what it does not value, that is, define the key success factors. Knowing the key factors for success, the company can direct its actions towards achieving them, which will obviously make it easier to meet the needs of its customers and thus achieve distinctive features with respect to its competition, achieving loyalty in your consumers and reducing the threat of substitute products.
The Key Result Areas.
The key result areas are the departments or groups in the organization primarily responsible for the organization's achieving a given key success factor. It depends on the type of key factor that is sought so that one or other areas of the organization are key. Key result areas establish where individual and collective efforts and resources will be located.
The objectives.
With the completion of the previous steps, the reason for being of the organization is known, that is, its mission, the desired state to be achieved, its strategic position, now it is necessary to define how to achieve the transition of it, from the current state to the desired future state.
In the next step the strategic objectives are established. The objectives constitute one of the fundamental categories of the management activity, because they condition the actions of the organization and especially of its leaders. An objective constitutes the expression of a purpose to be obtained.
The objectives have several categories for their classification, among them are:
- Collective and individual.General and private.Main and secondary.Long and short term.
Due to their precision, the objectives are classified as:
- Objectives trajectory. They are important to set policies, orientations towards where we are going and to propose global strategies, but to carry out a management process in a given time frame, it is essential to be guided by task objectives. They express a continuous nature of the objective over time and that it is a path that we must follow, they can become functions of people or departments. Normative objectives. The quantitative or qualitative degree that a trajectory objective or any other objective that we wish to achieve must satisfy. They express what is the desired state of the objective, which guarantees what we want. Objectives tasks. Express in time. Quantity and / or quality what you want to achieve.
These are the most common, without these it is not possible to plan, organize and control a process. Some can be expressed quantitatively, others are made more difficult and additional qualitative precision is required or can only be expressed qualitatively.
From the hierarchical point of view, the first level of objective is defined by the mission of the organization as the most general expression of its reason for being in terms of its economic and social role. The second level of the objectives of an organization are the general objectives, which express the purposes or goals on a global scale, and in the long term, depending on its mission, but also depending on the situation of the environment and especially its evolution. future, especially the opportunities and threats that it presents, as well as the internal situation of the organization.
The four fundamental principles that govern forecasting and planning objectives can be summarized as follows:
- Accuracy: They must be understood by all subordinates and those involved and be able to be verified, when they cannot be quantifiable, the criteria to evaluate their achievement must be defined. Participation. One of the most important elements of the effectiveness of planning because the more subordinates participate, the greater commitment there will be in meeting the objectives. Integration: It is necessary to integrate the greatest number of related aspects, so that in a formulation the tasks for the assurance of this are considered. Realism: It is necessary that they be decisive, challenging and feasible, that all efforts are directed towards them, but that they are possible to achieve.
On the other hand, the theory of goal setting states that there are five justifying principles of the relationship between objectives and performance:
- Performance. The performance of a worker who has defined objectives is higher than that of one who lacks them. Specificity. Clearly and specifically defined objectives lead to higher performance than poorly defined objectives. Difficulty. Goals that are a moderately difficult challenge lead to higher performance than goals that are perceived as too difficult to achieve. Realism. Challenging goals must be equally realistic or achievable if the individual is to make an effort to achieve them. Acceptance. Challenging and realistic goals are associated with higher performance as long as they are decided, or at least accepted, by whoever has to meet them. Group goal setting increases acceptance.
It is important to note that regardless of the way in which the general objectives are defined, it is necessary that participation in their formulation is not limited only to senior management, insofar as the participation of officers in the formulation of the objectives, so will be the level of commitment in the fulfillment of these.
The person's conscious intentions (their goals and objectives) are the primary determinants of their motivation for the action effort. When people pursue challenging goals they perform better than when they seek to achieve goals that are easier to obtain.
1 Stoner, James. Administration, 5th edition.
2 Peter Drucker, cited by Guillermo Ronda. Holguin Master Thesis 2000. p 32.
3 Martínez Díaz, Felix. The strategic mission. The importance of recovering values as a category. / Brochures Gerenciales, No 5, CCED, MES, La Habana Cuba, 24 pp..
4 Sallenave, Jean, P.. Management and strategic planning. / Grupo Editorial norma SA, Colombia, sp.
5 Garcia, Salvador. The Management by values / Salvador García and Shimon Dollan./ SPI, 307 pp..
6 Yañes González, Eugenio. Strategic Direction / strategic decisions. / Ed SIME Printing Workshops, La Haba Cuba, 239 pp..
7 Lazo Vento, Carlos. Territorial Strategic Direction. Carlos Lazo Vento, Gliceria Gómez Ceballos and Reynaldo Fernández Lorenzo./ Management by Objectives and Strategic Management, the Cuban experience. Compendium of articles, CCED, MES, Havana Cuba, pp 125 - 156.
8 Rodríguez González, Fermín O.. Strategic Focus, Direction and Planning. Concepts and methodology. / Fermín O. Rodríguez Gonzáles and Sonia Alemañy Ramos./ Management by Objectives and Strategic Management, the Cuban experience. Compendium of articles, CCED, MES, La Habana Cuba, pp 10 - 40.
10 Goldsmith, Joan. Technical report: Management by Objectives Workshop, April 1997./ Joan Goldsmith and Keneth Cloke. Compiled by: Esperanza Carballal del Rio, Jorge Rodríguez López and Carlos Díaz Llorca./ Management by Objectives and Strategic Management, the Cuban experience.
11 Spain. How to prepare a strategic plan for the company / ESADE, No 1, pp 1-36.
