MENV Mission Vision Statement Critique

As we near the end of this semester, it’s nice to take a moment to reflect amidst all the chaos of final papers and projects. For the last blog post of the semester we’re critiquing the MENV program’s mission and vision statement by applying the 10 Tests for Effective Mission à Visions outlined in Derek and Laura Cabrera’s book Systems Thinking Made Simple. Although this would have been a great essay style prompt, I chose to just take each of the 10 tests and briefly reflect upon those in the context of the MENV program. Enjoy!

MENV Mission

We educate our students to advance sustainability solutions across a wide-range of environmental careers and sectors by promoting a community of learning through engaged and inter-disciplinary classes and real-world professional experience.

MENV Vision

MENV provides environmental leaders with the knowledge, skills and experiences necessary to understand a changing world and build a more just, sustainable, and productive planet.

Cabrera, pg. 211 – 10 Tests for Effective Missions and Visions

1. Missions à Visions are short and simple

It’s hard to capture what the MENV program is trying to accomplish in just a few short words. That being said, the mission statement is a little wordy for what it’s trying to encapsulate.

2. Visions capture a picture of a binary future state.

I see that the vision wants the world to be just, sustainable, and productive. Looking below at the values of the MENV program, I think this vision shows that its about changing society more so than just the environment.

3. Visions are intrinsically motivating.

While I realize a lot of talented individuals probably signed off on the vision statement, the last part of the vision statement feels a little clunky.

4. Missions are simple rules that follow a formula.

We are here to learn from as many different people, places, and situations as possible. I can see that.

5. Repeatedly doing your mission should bring about the vision.

If we’re constantly learning across as many different disciplines, then we’ll have a diverse pool of experiences to apply to the problems we try and solve. Hopefully once we go through the Maymester course it will be clearer about some of these value-laden statements about ethicality.

6. Mission à Visions must be measurable.

I wouldn’t want to make a “SMART” goal for the entire MENV program, but when your vision is world where humans live in harmony with nature and each other, each person’s definition of harmony and “justness” is going to be slightly different. I think there’s more room to make this measurable.

7. Mission moments are rare and precious.

Learning has the capacity to deeply enrich people’s lives. When that learning diverse and through peers or experts it is both rare and precious.

8. Mission à Visions are mental models, not statements.

The Belgian painter Rene Magritte captured this best with his painting of a pipe entitled: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” With this set of mission and vision statements, I think we’re displaying the right values of what this program wants to accomplish. Getting feedback as the program matures should be interesting.

9. Culture is built on shared, core mental models.

Within these statements I think is the inherent sense that there is something wrong with the world and we’re out to fix it. As each of us share our experiences and what we’re doing within our capstones within each other, this is definitely a shared mental model even if it applies to different parts of our society.

10. Learning constantly improves vision, mission, and culture.

Probably the only tragedy involved with the MENV vision, mission, and culture that I can think of is that it wasn’t shared with the cohort as a whole previously. Our environmental leadership course probably could’ve taken a stab as this and honed our efforts further. Considering this program is in its infancy, there is a huge ceiling of potential for it especially if the people within it are actively trying to learn and develop the mission, vision and culture.

Reflecting upon the course, there has been a lot to learn. Personally, I came into the course thinking this class would be all about the “Functionalist” types of systems where everything is broken apart to its simplest pieces and then quantified until it is perfectly explained. I was pleasantly surprised to find this wasn’t the case, even though I love me some quantification. Soft systems and Complex Adaptive Systems are much more accurate for the types of technological and social systems we’re all embedded within. To me the largest takeaway has been how perspectives and values can explain a system’s behavior and the rules it operates by.  

Comments

[Sam Krasnobrod]

I think that's a really good point... the mental model proposed in the mission/vision suggests that there is something wrong with the world. Same with the "Make America Great Again" campaign, when was America not great? When was it great? Why bring America back to there it was, why not move it forward?

I think that we should be more worried about understanding the complex systems that make the world run. Then again, I'm but a mere masters student...

[Cody Janousek]

I guess moreso than just suggesting there's something wrong with the world, which you pointed out with the Make America Great Again slogan, the program is asserting that it has the answer to fix the problem. Interesting parallel you drew, thank you for that.

[Harsha Maragh]

I agree with you Cody on almost every critique that you've made for each test. I had the similar thoughts when thinking about test #6, although I took my own critique in a different direction. It is hard to measure why someone came into the program and if they are leaving with the skills that they set out to attain. I agree that we all have different personal mental models for the environment, but we do need to figure out a way to measure this for MENV to be a successful program going forward.

[Mallika]

agree that it is too bad that the Mission -> Vision statement wasn’t shared with us sooner. I feel like it conveys a mental model that, upon reflection, seems like it is shared by many of the faculty in this program. For me, this provides a lot of clarity about how MENV is approaching the design of the program, particularly the selection of core courses. I had previously been confused by this, so I found the additional clarity helpful.

Also, to address Sam’s interesting parallel, I think the whole “Make America Great Again” speaks to the power of shared mental models. In the case of this slogan, people share a mental model that America is in decline and needs to be returned to an earlier time when things were better (I’m sure you all have also read some of the seemingly endless articles on the possible underlying forces contributing to this mental model, so I won’t go into that here). In the case of MENV, I feel like it’s safe to say that we also share a mental model that the world isn’t as just, productive, or sustainable as it could or should be, which is why we’ve entered the environmental field. There are certainly people out there who may disagree with this mental model (climate change deniers spring to mind as an example). Ideally, through systems thinking, we can continually reflect upon and improve our mental models, as well as connect with others who share our mental models to create change.