When going through the GDPI processes for the Management Colleges, I was repeated asked why I wanted to do an MBA, and where I wanted to be 5-10 yrs from now. These questions felt weird at the time; I used to believe that "You can't see past the choices you haven't made". I still firmly believe in this.
But I realised that what they were asking is what is your aim, your Vision, in life and what you plan to do about it, that is what your Mission is.
The Mission and the Vision
Every organisation has, or should have, a Vision and a Mission. The Vision that a company has serves as the Pole Star, a beacon towards the ultimate aim of the organisation. The path that the organisation uses to reach that goal becomes the mission.
These two are an important part of the strategic planning of an organisation.
The other two parts are the Core Values of the organisation and their overall Strategy.
Vision of a company is a cherished desire, an idealized version of the world the company wants to operate in. It may be as abstract as possible, but it must be something which can worked towards. the Mission of the company consists of the actions or the general directions the company plans to take to achieve its Vision.
In this increasingly borderless world, conforming to a single vision can be challenging. Take Toyota for example. I was recently working on an assignment given by Pundir Sir on Toyota Motor Corp.
The Toyota brand was built on reliability and trust, and they had a certain interpretation of their Mission and Vision statement which was rooted in their culture.
"Toyota will lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people.
Through our commitment to quality, constant innovation and respect for the planet, we aim to exceed expectations and be rewarded with a smile.
We will meet our challenging goals by engaging the talent and passion of the people, who believe there is always a better way."
A splendid vision indeed! However, during late 1980s and through the 1990s, Toyota expanded at a very fast rate. They opened new manufacturing facilities and subsidiaries, and today employ around 325,000 workers worldwide. But with this expansion, the cultural boundaries were also stretched beyond limits. The deviations from the interpretations increased and finally reached a tipping point when Toyota had to recall more than 8 million cars due to unintended acceleration.
Now their Vision was good, the mission was well defined, but the ways the employees in different parts of the world strove to achieve their goals was very different.
Here I learnt that though it is important to have a goal, it is equally important to have a sense of direction.
Employee Productivity
This is probably the most debated topic in the management world. How do I increase productivity?
When an employee works in an organisation, his output may depend on a variety of factors: kind of bosses, location, work environment, ambience, even the presence or absence of a coffee machine!!
However, I feel that whatever the variables, an employee would work better if he gets a regular diet of appreciation and reward.
Some experiments have been conducted in this regard, most known of them being the Hawthrone Effect. The experiments were conducted by the researches of the Harward University in the Hawthrone works Plant of Western Electric. The experiments involved varying the intensity of the lighting at the plant and recording the change in productivity of the workers.
The illumination was first increased, and then decreased, and the change in productivity noted. It was observed that the workers productivity did not decrease with decrease in illumination. It was concluded that productivity increased due to attention from the research team and not because of changes to the illumination.
The above experiment throws light on a couple of things.
First, human beings are not programmed to work in monotony. They respond to change, however meagre or irrelevant it may be. Second, it's not what happens but what the employee perceives has happened that matters.
Through this lecture, I have learnt that even a minor change in the working conditions, or a small appreciation, can work wonders for the productivity of the employees.
But I realised that what they were asking is what is your aim, your Vision, in life and what you plan to do about it, that is what your Mission is.
The Mission and the Vision
Every organisation has, or should have, a Vision and a Mission. The Vision that a company has serves as the Pole Star, a beacon towards the ultimate aim of the organisation. The path that the organisation uses to reach that goal becomes the mission.
These two are an important part of the strategic planning of an organisation.The other two parts are the Core Values of the organisation and their overall Strategy.
Vision of a company is a cherished desire, an idealized version of the world the company wants to operate in. It may be as abstract as possible, but it must be something which can worked towards. the Mission of the company consists of the actions or the general directions the company plans to take to achieve its Vision.
In this increasingly borderless world, conforming to a single vision can be challenging. Take Toyota for example. I was recently working on an assignment given by Pundir Sir on Toyota Motor Corp.
The Toyota brand was built on reliability and trust, and they had a certain interpretation of their Mission and Vision statement which was rooted in their culture.
"Toyota will lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people.
Through our commitment to quality, constant innovation and respect for the planet, we aim to exceed expectations and be rewarded with a smile.
We will meet our challenging goals by engaging the talent and passion of the people, who believe there is always a better way."
A splendid vision indeed! However, during late 1980s and through the 1990s, Toyota expanded at a very fast rate. They opened new manufacturing facilities and subsidiaries, and today employ around 325,000 workers worldwide. But with this expansion, the cultural boundaries were also stretched beyond limits. The deviations from the interpretations increased and finally reached a tipping point when Toyota had to recall more than 8 million cars due to unintended acceleration.
Now their Vision was good, the mission was well defined, but the ways the employees in different parts of the world strove to achieve their goals was very different.
Here I learnt that though it is important to have a goal, it is equally important to have a sense of direction.
Employee Productivity
This is probably the most debated topic in the management world. How do I increase productivity?When an employee works in an organisation, his output may depend on a variety of factors: kind of bosses, location, work environment, ambience, even the presence or absence of a coffee machine!!
However, I feel that whatever the variables, an employee would work better if he gets a regular diet of appreciation and reward.
Some experiments have been conducted in this regard, most known of them being the Hawthrone Effect. The experiments were conducted by the researches of the Harward University in the Hawthrone works Plant of Western Electric. The experiments involved varying the intensity of the lighting at the plant and recording the change in productivity of the workers.
The illumination was first increased, and then decreased, and the change in productivity noted. It was observed that the workers productivity did not decrease with decrease in illumination. It was concluded that productivity increased due to attention from the research team and not because of changes to the illumination.
The above experiment throws light on a couple of things.First, human beings are not programmed to work in monotony. They respond to change, however meagre or irrelevant it may be. Second, it's not what happens but what the employee perceives has happened that matters.
Through this lecture, I have learnt that even a minor change in the working conditions, or a small appreciation, can work wonders for the productivity of the employees.
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