Defining Missions is a corporate seminar designed to provide executives, managers, and leaders of all types, insight into the underlying dynamics associated with mission systems.  Delivered through a format that includes lecture, examples, and interactive exercises, this seminar transfers new concepts effectively in a participant-friendly manner.  

Competition in today's markets demands astute management skills and a greater understanding of the elements that influence a mission.  Now is the time to learn about missions, their fundamental nature, and the underlying influences that affect their success.

Since missions represent the highest level of logic associated with intent based systems, accurately defining the mission is of paramount importance to your business.  Even small variances in the logic at this level affect the mission's character, behavior, and baseline structures.  

Try this little exercise in your next staff or employee meeting.

In your next staff meeting, ask each person who reports to you to write down what he or she thinks is the mission of your group without conferring with any other group members.  It has to be spontaneous.  Emphasize that he or she should not access company documentation available to them.  You are looking for each individual’s perception of the mission of the group.

Now review the answers. 

• How many of the missions are identical?

• How many actually state what your mission is?

• How many perceive and can communicate the reality of your mission?

 Remember:

• Variances in the way the mission is perceived is a leading cause of malfunction in any business, large or small.

• Failure to define the mission properly ignores a fundamental precept of effective management.

On a global level, innovations in mission designs represent a new frontier, a place where balances in value structures are qualifiers for available opportunities and where both short and long range rewards are equally honored.  Well-defined missions supported by innovative designs provide both the underpinnings for stable markets and the desire to explore new frontiers.

Participants in this seminar not only develop new strategies for effectively accomplishing work, but also benefit from the mutual integration of data related to creating more cohesive and effective mission structures.  Participants leave the seminar with a better understanding their own missions, as well as a greater appreciation of how their missions support or contribute to others.

Defining Missions can be a useful process at almost any point in your business cycle.  For instance, the process is ideal for structuring a mission in its earliest stages.  Capturing the essence of the mission at that level provides substantial assurance that the best possible resources can be identified and utilized.   

Revisiting the mission after it is already underway is also useful.  It can provide assurance that those who are executing the mission are doing so in a manner that is congruent with the original intention.  It can also serve as a means for assuring that the structure of the original mission has maintained its value within its existing markets and environment.  From this standpoint, learning to define missions provides the basis through which an effective assessment of the mission structure can be conducted, the value of change can be identified, and enhancements made.

Missions of all sizes and types benefit from proper definition.  Whether the mission is a macro mission for a major corporation or a mission associated with a division, department, team, or individual, the exploration of an appropriate definition is highly useful.

On a personal level, learning to define missions brings structure to your goals, thus generating greater rewards for both yourself and those you choose to support. 

Presented as a corporate seminar, this program is initiated with a philosophical definition of the term, mission.  From there it explains how missions are formed.

This preliminary discussion of the mission's baseline dynamics leads to a broader discussion of the formation of the mission system and concludes with the suggestion that mission systems provide the conceptual framework though transformations of physical structures, living environments, and sociological concepts.

Following the introduction of the mission system, the program engages participants in the process of defining missions, including discussions and exercises such as,    

1. Separating the Mission from the Mission System

2. Exploring Hopes and Expectations

3. Defining the Mission's Role in Its Environment

4. Reviewing Internal Structures

5. Defining Missions

This seminar includes both materials and services.  OAC's services are provided by experts who are certified in the Mission Design Process.  Materials for the class are included.  Each class member will receive one copy of ZEN and Applications of MISSION DESIGN, by Jan Griebe, Ph.D.  Classes are designed to accommodate no more than 21 persons without prior arrangements.

The Defining Mission program includes, the following services:

• A preparatory visit;

• The seminar; and,

• A scheduled debriefing.

When the order is placed, an OAC representative will assist you in scheduling the seminar or seminars you have ordered.  Sufficient notice is required.  Once the schedule is set, the following process is initiated based on that schedule.

Preliminary Research Period

OAC consultants visit your offices to perform initial research.  These activities occur as agreed upon after the schedule is established.  During this time, activities include the following. 

• Meeting with key people including the executives, managers, and others who will attend the course. 

• Reviewing the current mission structure and identifying work involved in each major organizational segment. 

• Meeting with the person responsible for the facilities to discuss logistics such as; classroom size, available equipment, number of people attending the course, materials, and other issues.

This task set includes one travel day and two days on location.

Conducting the Seminar

The seminar is conducted through an interactive process over a period of two days.  Classes are conducted over eight hour periods, allowing one hour for lunch and breaks as necessary.

Debriefing

A debriefing is planned for the morning following the seminar.  This task set includes one day on location and for travel.

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