OBJECTIVES

To help your team clarify its primary purpose, review and update its mission statement, and define ways to support the team mission.

ABOUT

This module will help existing teams relook at what its purpose has become (this often changes with time and organizational priorities) and then update its mission statement. It will help new teams clarify their primary purpose and better define the critical strategies for achieving it.

A team mission is not the same as the over-arching organizational mission. Each team has a unique role to play in helping the organization succeed. This module helps teams distinguish its purpose which the goals and action plans then support.

WHEN TO USE

Use this Module when:

• get new teams off to a good start with a clear sense of purpose
  bond team members who have pulled together out of disconnected groups and give them a sense of shared purpose
• rejuvenate established teams where members have gotten complacent, into a rut and “just-a-job” mentality
• inspire the “quiet quitters” who silently do only assigned work and little more than what is expected because they have lost their motivation and sense of purpose.
• redirect those teams whose purpose has changed so often that they have lost their direction

This module, Defining Our Team’s Mission, has two components.

1) The Discussion Guide and Worksheet

This discussion guide, which is what the team members complete, contains step-by-step interactive fields, check boxes, and open fill-in spaces. This guide can be completed online using the interactive pdf and then shared or referenced as the team discusses each step.  Some steps are designed to be completed together.

2) Facilitator/User’s Guide

These support materials are available to help guide the leader or facilitator through the steps of the discussion guide.

The facilitator may be an outside consultant, the team leader, or one of the team members. However, everyone can help ensure success by reading through some of the tips and suggestions in this guide.

NOTES FROM DR. PATRICK HANDLEY

It continues to surprise me how many teams have drifted away from their original mission and members have lost their sense of purpose. Sometimes this means they just manage projects and put out fires and have little personal connection to their original mission.

This module gives team members a chance to clarify or re-define their mission (purpose). An updated mission statement is much different from some old poster on the wall that a previous team or human resource specialist set years ago. It is not very inspiring to work on a mission you have had little input into creating. So even if the wording of your updated mission statement might have some similarities to the old one, going through the process will help bind team members together

I have a book on my shelf that is nearly 3 inches thick. It was published over 30 years ago and it lists sample team mission statements. These represent anything from high level executive teams to entry level teams. Almost all these mission statements follow a different structure. Some read like goal statements, others sound like performance strategies, still others are a list of guiding values and principles.

There is no perfect statement. This module stays focused on the most generally accepted structure of a core mission statement. The objective is to make it “good” and not get caught up overworking it in a fruitless attempt to make it perfect.