This is part of a introduction level series of presentation I did for the Health Foundation of Salvation Army in Indonesia.
This is on mission statements
You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkLhlJyfpsw
29. 29
Within the spirit and passion of
Christianity, we pursue the
health and salvation of both
body & soul for all people,
without any regard for
background, race, nationality,
skin color, economic status,
religion, or belief.
30. 30
Encourage and ensure all YPKBK Hospital provides
holistic health services without discrimination, to
people in need with passion hearts fixed on God
and hands outstretched to humans
Help people get to know the love of Christ by
applying love in health care to patients, families
and employees through an integrated mission in
the Hospital YPKBK
Implement and oversee the administration and
management that is transparent, accountable and
sustainable
Contribute to the development of medical science
and nursing through the latest data and
conducting research at the Hospital YPKBK
Encourage and ensure all YPKBK Hospital provides
holistic health services without discrimination, to
people in need with passion hearts fixed on God
and hands outstretched to humans
Help people get to know the love of Christ by
applying love in health care to patients, families
and employees through an integrated mission in
the Hospital YPKBK
Implement and oversee the administration and
management that is transparent, accountable
and sustainable
Contribute to the development of medical
science and nursing through the latest data and
conducting research at the Hospital YPKBK
Why do we do what we do?
How can we know what is the next good thing to do?
How can our staff know how to behave or act in all the situations they are facing?
Why did she do like that? That’s not what we wanted.
These, and similar, are big and very complicated questions that organisation leaders have tried to answered for as long as there have been organisations.
I don’t claim to have the answer to those questions - but I know one thing; without a clearly defined and communicated goal it more or less impossible to begin get the questions above under control.
With a really good strategic plan, based and aiming for a vision state, grounded in the mission of the organisation we can create like an internal compass for the organisation, and every member in it.
Guiding us in our decisions, helping us when we’re planning, springing creativity and new ideas to bring us closer to the goal.
My name is Marcus Hammarberg and I work for Yayasan Pelayanan Kesehatan Bala Keselematan, the Salvation Army Health Foundation in Indonesia. we have been talking a lot about questions like these during the last couple of years.
In these small presentations I wanted to share, not only why this is very important, but also some simple tools to start to work with this.
This is the first presentation that talks about Mission.
The mission statement is where it all starts. This is the purpose of an organisation. Our reason to exists. The purpose of having this organisation in the first place.
I know that mission have another definition, for some reason, for hospitals in Indonesia.
This is due to some unfortunate naming in regulations from the Health Department (DINKES) so for the rest of this presentation I make sure to make very clear that I’m talking about the purpose, the reason to exists, when I mention the mission statement.
There’s also different schools of thought around if the mission comes before vision or the opposite. Going back to the definition of the words have me think like this:
* Mission - “a task or job that someone is given to do” from Merriam Webster dictionary. The “task” they talk about here is the purpose of our organisation. “The purpose that we are given to do”. The WHY
* Vision - talks about a sight - seeing something, seeing a future we see, envisioning a dream.
To avoid confusion around this I will call the first purpose and the second vision.
The mission statement is based on our philosophy and values that our company has. Those tells us how the *people* in the organisation thinks and act. What *kind* of people do we want to be?
I’ve always found it very useful to put those values and philosophy into context by giving very concrete examples on what that mean.
Let’s say that the values for our hospital are:
* Bold
* Professional
* Compassionate
These words means a lot of things for a lot of different people. It’s a little bit unclear what they means.
To make it clearer what we mean we can start to fill them with values by telling stories, giving examples.
Here’s a few, made-up, examples:
“Direktur T.B. showed boldness when he dared to open a new ward for HIV although we didn’t know how the community would react”
“I really appreciate the professionalism that I heard during the operation yesterday when I heard nurse Erlin disagree with the doctor. And in doing so preventing a potential accident”
“We saw Maj Stephie go into the room of the crying relatives of a deceased muslim and offering consolation. That’s Godly compassion in action”
Now, we start to understand more and more what these words actually means in practice. We give concrete examples on who and when.
Also by repeatingly telling these stories we automatically keep the values alive and relevant.
The values and philosophy affects our purpose, mission statement. Where values and philosophy talks about the *people in* the organisation the purpose, mission statement talks about the *purpose* of the organisation itself.
Answering the question: Why does this *organisation* exists?
This might also end up being some pretty lofty and highflying statements, so we could benefit from exemplifying here too. You will be happy to hear that the example is actually what the vision that the next video is about.
The purpose or mission statement is what we build our vision and plans on. In the mission statement we describe why the world need us.
In fact that’s a really good place to start: by asking Why does this organisation exist? What is its place and purpose?
Commissioner Michael Parker, the leader of the Salvation Army Indonesia uses a phrase that, most likely, is best suitable for churches and their services; Why has God called the Salvation Army to have hospitals in Indonesia? or Why has God called the Salvation Army to have a hospital in Semarang?
If we belong to a mother organisation, like the hospitals of the health Foundation belongs to the Foundation and the Foundation belongs to the Salvation Army in Indonesia, it’s important to make sure that our mission statements and purpose align and support each other.
They don’t have to be exactly the same but they have to support the same values. Or the organisation is not working together towards the overarching goal
For example, the Salvation Army of Indonesia have many kinds of services. Like churches, children homes, health service and emergency service. The purpose of the Salvation Army Indonesia is wider, of course, than the one for the Health Foundation.
But the purpose of the Health Foundation needs to be aligned and support the mission statement of the Salvation Army to make sure that we working according to the same principles.
To wrap things up, let’s take a look at a couple of mission statements that are good. And see why they are good.
These might have changed now, but it’s unlikely. Remember that this is the purpose of the organisation. Those change rarely… When the organisation crashed and need to start from scratch maybe.
Secondly it’s not very interesting if this is up to date or not; this is just examples
Walmart: Save people money to help them live better lives
From this mission we see that it’s the better lives that is important for Walmart. They do that by saving them money. This purpose is very clear, but give little guidance on how. Maybe that can be found in Walmarts values, maybe not.
General Electric: Make money, make it ethically, make a difference.
The purpose/mission is also to the point and very clear. It also gives some guidance on how. More over it’s brief. Being brief it requires that we talk and communicate this a lot of to make sure that we understand what it means. For example by telling stories.
The International Salvation Army: Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in his name without discrimination.
Short and to the point. It talks about Jesus Christ being in the center of everything we do. In the purpose we also see the connection to the practical of meeting human needs.
This is the purpose of the Salvation Army - the combination of the two.
This is short, and needs more information to fully understand what it actually means. There’s plenty of that on the Salvation Army homepage
Bala Keselamatan Indonesia: Saving Souls; Growing Saints &
Serving Suffering Humanity
Again - this is short and concise. It’s easy to remember, but require that we fill these short statements with value and explanation in order to make sure that we all understand the same thing.
SILOAM Hopsitals: International Quality. Scale. Reach. Godly Compassion.
Although SILOAM has formulated just a couple of words as their purpose, it conveys a lot of information. Both on the purpose of the organisation but also a little bit about how the people in the organisation should behave.
Rumah Sakit Borromeus: Within the spirit and passion of Christianity, we pursue the health and salvation of both body & soul for all people, without any regard for background, race, nationality, skincolor, economic status, religion, or belief.
This purpose statement is more elaborate but nicely wraps up the reason for the Borromeus hospitals to exist.
Yayasan Pelayanan Kesehatan Bala Keselamatan…
Well this is rather long, so let’s not stay on all of this since it’s just to exemplify. In this case we can see how we support the mission above.
In this case we are supporting the mission of the Bala Keselamatan and also the Department of Health in Indonesia
In this short presentation we have looked at Mission statements. They talk about the purpose, the reason to exists for an organisation.
Although they might sound lofty and hard to grasp they are actually very important since they talk about the foundation of the organisation.
Without a purpose - the reason to work for or in an organisation is not known.
Without a purpose - the basis for motivation, loyalty and creativity is gone
Without a purpose - there’s nothing to build our vision, our hopes for the future on.
Vision is the topic for the next presentation. See you there!
My name is Marcus Hammarberg. This has been 10 minutes on Mission statements.
Thank you for listening.
Tuhan Memberkati Anda - God Bless you.