Assignment
Q1. Describe the concept of vision and mission in an organisation.
A. Vision: It defines and describes the future situation that a company wishes to have, the intention of the vision is to guide, to control and to encourage the organization as a whole to reach the desirable state of the organization. The vision cannot be made by the owner alone. He has to fulfil the wishes of the stakeholders. There are various views regarding how we make a vision. But Collins and Porras in their noted article ‘Organisational Vision and Visionary Organisation’ spelt out that a vision statement has to have four parts namely: 1> Core values 2> Core purposes 3> the Big Hairy Audacious Goal or BHAG and 4> the vivid description. 1> Core values: The core values are those things very close to our heart that we will never give up at any cost. It can be integrity or quality etc. Usually we should have only 4 to 6 core values. If we have too many of them, they fail to remain ‘core’ and loses their impact. Core values are important because when we have a decision dilemma, they come up like a lighthouse to navigate us.
2> Core purposes: It is the purpose of the organisation. This is something that we want to achieve within the framework of our core values. It gives the achievement orientation to the business and therefore focus. When we get an opportunity to expand or sell off and if we are in decision dilemma, this acts as another light house.
3>BHAG: The BHAG is about having a goal which qualifies the purpose. We say that BHAG should be big, yet specific and that our chance of attaining it is only 70%. If the probability of attaining it is more than 70%, perhaps our BHAG is not big enough and not audacious enough and we have set our goals too low.
4> vivid description: The vivid description should make the entire vision statement very inspiring to all