The Cabreras managed to conclude Systems Thinking Made Simple with a third section that was more digestible and clear than the previous two. I found Chapter 11 to be an interesting way to apply basic systems rules to the issue of organizational design. The authors introduce the concepts of Vision, Mission, Culture, and Learning as the four foundational rules for good organizational leadership. They describe Vision as the concise future goal or state an organization is striving to attain, and the Mission as the simple repeatable rules that lead to the vision. Culture refers to the shared mental models that support the Mission and Vision, and Learning describes the incremental improvements of the other three rules through systems thinking analysis. I think the clarification between Mission and Vision is an important one. Too often, mission and vision statements in organizations are synonymous. This seems especially pervasive in the nonprofit sector. Sometimes, visions are articulated that are either unrealistic or truly unattainable. While I do think it’s good to set high organizational goals, having a Mission (as defined by the Cabreras) is crucial to keeping the organization grounded. It’s important to lay out simple, conceptually clear pathways towards reaching the Vision in a way that everyone involved can grasp. I can think of several environmental nonprofits that could stand to benefit from using the VMCL framework.
I also liked the 10 rules for testing Mission--Vision effectiveness. They were succinct and easy to grasp, but also were fairly intuitive. For example, rule number 6, which reads that Mission--Vision should be measurable, gets at a systemic organizational issue—the lack of usable metrics. Visions statements are often vague, and without legitimate tracking measures it’s impossible to determine progress. This reminded me of an assignment we completed last semester with Sharon for our Leadership class, where we analyzed an organization’s annual report. I chose The Nature Conservancy, and was pretty impressed by their goals and robust monitoring techniques for each category. But they were still vague in some areas, and could likely improve overall by consulting these 10 rules for effectiveness.
Question: What did you think of the VMCL rules? Do they apply well, or are there exceptions you can think of? To me, they seem designed to work best for nonprofit organizations. What about for businesses?
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