The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 257 - Missionvisionvalues

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jen.

Jen: Today, I want to talk to you about a phrase that I often hear as a word, which is: missionvisionvalues.

Pete: Like one word, missionvisionvalues?

Jen: Yeah, missionvisionvalues.

Pete: Ah, yep, yep. Okay, so one word, not three separate words, but maybe we'll unpack what the three separate words mean and what all of this means. Missionvisionvalues. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Ah, it just tickles me so. It reminds me of when a child learns that L-M-N-O-P is not a word, but in fact, it's five separate letters.

Pete: Yes. Which, random side fact, one of my favorite surfing/bodyboarding brands growing up was called LMNOP, and they kind of did a play on the fact that everybody thinks this is a word, LMNOP.

Jen: Well, missionvisionvalues is...

Pete: Ah, it's so good. I actually wrote it down as one word too, just so I'm like, "Alright, this is definitely how it is."

Jen: Ah, I want to discuss it because today I was talking to a group of artists about how important it is for us to be aware of our mission as artists, our vision of what our art can possibly create in the world, and our values, how we show up, and that the lumping together of these three ideas robs us of some specificity and an opportunity to really show up intentionally.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So I thought we should unpack the words, and then maybe shuffle them into different orders.

Pete: Yeah. I wonder if it's like the familiarity of hearing them in that order, to your point, robs them of what they actually mean, because we just hear it and it kind of washes over us and we're like, "Oh, yeah, I know what that means." But do we actually? Alright, let's break it down. What does "mission" mean to you, Jennifer?

Jen: To me, the mission is what I'm actually doing, like the thing I am trying to accomplish. The vision is the bigger picture, what my mission is ultimately in support of, this bigger picture for what could be possible, what the world could look like. And my values are the guiding principles that help me make decisions, in support of accomplishing the mission, in support of the bigger vision.

Pete: Yes, I like that. I feel already like I want to shuffle the order, just based on how you described that. I'm like looking at this myself, going, "Oh, yeah. They're in the wrong order. They're in the wrong order."

Jen: Right? How do you think about these three independent words?

Pete: Well, I feel like I'm one of the people that's guilty of not having thought enough about them as individual words. And just having heard them, especially in the, you know, in the corporate context, you hear about like mission and vision so much. And it's so often these words on a website or on a wall that ends up kind of sounding the same as everybody else's, or ends up being a lovely marketing exercise. It's not actually representative of the actual culture that's within that organization. So, I have a little bit of a funny relationship with these three words as a sentence or as a phrase, to your point. It's funny, I already look at them and go, when you describe them like that, like, "What am I doing," is part of the mission. And then, "What does that lead to? Like, what's the vision that I'm hoping to be a part of or contribute to? What's the, almost the outcome of the way that I show up? And then, the guiding principles that help me get there?" I feel like that makes so much sense to me. And I actually think, I want to like start with vision. What's the bigger picture? What's the change I'm seeking to create? What's the purpose of me even doing this? It sort of reminds me of the question, "What's it for," like we talk about so often, or, "What does success look like?" That's like the vision. I kind of want to get clear on that first. And then, I kind of want to get clear on my values...(these are just my immediate thoughts)...my guiding principles that are going to help me get there. And then once I'm clear on those two things, it's like, "Okay, and so what am I going to do in order to get there? What am I going to do that's in alignment with my values? What am I going to do, i.e. what's my mission, based on those two things?" So, that's my initial thought on the reshuffle.

Jen: Love it.

Pete: How's that landing with you?

Jen: Oh, it's great. You know, I had about twenty-five people in this conversation today. Everybody defined these words for themselves, and everybody's definitions were slightly different.

Pete: Oh, interesting.

Jen: And the order of importance felt slightly different for everyone. So I'm wondering if, you know, in corporate land where you often go to share your wisdom, like is it important that we all have the same definitions? Or is it important if we're all working on the same mission toward the same vision that we even agree on what these words mean? I actually don't know. In this group of independent artists, I was like, "It doesn't really matter. As long as you know what it means to you and it helps you move forward, great." But I'm wondering like, when you're working underneath the umbrella of something, do we even have to agree about what these words mean?

Pete: It's a great question. I have done a lot of work with organizations in the past, specifically around values. And in a previous life, I was involved in an organization where we helped organizations build and run reward and recognition programs or appreciation-based programs that were a way for colleagues to recognize each other against or based on the company values. So, we did a heap of work around the values exercise of an organization. And one of the things I used to talk about and think about, and I still think about this (and I still think it's true in my mind, and people are more than welcome to disagree with me), is that a company can have an overarching set of values and they can mean different things to each individual. So "collaboration" is like probably the most overused and generic company value that exists in the world, or "innovation", or "integrity". And yet, what that means to Team A or even Individual A is completely different, potentially, of what that means to Team B or Individual B. And so, I used to talk about the fact that as a leader, you can get your team enrolled in the values by getting them to help you articulate or help articulate for themselves, "What does that actually mean to you?" And it might be different to what it means to the team that you're running in parallel with, and that's okay. So, I feel like that is a really important call out to make. I haven't actually thought about until this moment, until you prompted me, if whether the same is true with vision and mission, of whether the words can mean different things to different people and it doesn't matter. The immediate response I have is, in an organization, you want to have some alignment on the vision. The how you get there, perhaps, the mission is probably going to differ depending on what team you're in or what leader you're led by. But I feel like the vision, we want to have some sort of alignment on, hopefully, ideally. There are my immediate thoughts.

Jen: Yeah, it feels like there's a whole other episode to do at some point about how we put our values in context. Because like you said, they're just words hanging in the air (and sometimes literally hanging on a wall) unless you put them in context.

Pete: Literally hanging in the air, yeah.

Jen: Okay, so we did this little thought experiment today in this group, as we were unpacking missionvisionvalues. And we were looking at, when you start with one of the words versus one of the other words, how does that change the way you feel and the way you show up? So I was talking to a group of theater artists, so the example we were using was showing up for a final callback for a Broadway show. So if I put "mission" first, then my mission is to nail this audition, to deliver the best possible performance, maybe even, dare I say, book the job. That is the mission of this final callback. But if I start with my "vision", then I'm showing up thinking about how this experience might contribute to a larger experience, and nailing the audition so that I book the role seems to be somewhat less important than if I'm doing the work that really matters in the grander scheme of things. And then if I put my "values" first, that is going to color, for me, the person I decide to be when I enter the room, how I engage with the other people who are in the room. So it's not like there's one thing that's better or worse, or more or less important, but it really is fascinating how it colors the perspective on one experience seen three different ways.

Pete: Yeah, I really agree with that. So the thing I was just jotting down, I was trying to work out as you were sharing, are there some of these, if we emphasize them first...like if I emphasize "mission" first, is that something that's within my control, and so therefore more empowering? I think the same would be true with "values", is, if I had "values" first, I can control whether I show up in alignment with my values, because I get to choose how I show up. And I was just thinking like, I feel like vision, if any of the three was somewhat out of your control, I think vision might be one of them. Like, you can hopefully increase the probability of achieving a broader vision by the way that you show up, but it might be somewhat out of your control. Which is okay, it doesn't mean you shouldn't emphasize that one first in some situations. But I was just thinking about, in certain contexts...like an audition is a very specific context. I think of auditions as job interviews in my world. And if I show up for a job that I really want to get and I walk away feeling like I was true to my values, the outcome of if I get the job or not, hopefully, is almost irrelevant, because the goal is to show up in alignment with my values.

Jen: Right.

Pete: So it's fascinating, when you articulate or you emphasize one over the other, how that changes. And I think it probably shifts depending on the context.

Jen: Right.

Pete: And whether it's in your control.

Jen: Yeah. I had someone today point out, "The only thing that feels like it's entirely in my control is my values."

Pete: Yes.

Jen: "I need other people to contribute to the mission, although I have some control over it. But the vision feels so far away from me that it's totally out of my control."

Pete: Yes. So that makes me wonder, what is the context or when is a situation where vision (which is more out of our control, or further away) is worth thinking about more and more or worth emphasizing more? I think I just came up with one, but I'm curious for your reaction.

Jen: Well, my immediate thought is fundraising.

Pete: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Say more?

Jen: Well, you know, being a person in the theater world, I do a lot of work with nonprofit arts organizations. And one of the most important elements of being a great fundraiser is leading with the vision and helping people see what their participation would make possible, inviting them to be part of a future that does not yet exist.

Pete: Yes. Beautiful. So the one I came up with was even more generic, was just like a leader.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: When you're leading a team, or an organization, or a not-for-profit, or a cause, or a charity, or whatever it is, you actually want to be able to cast a vision that others can enroll in or buy in to or get excited about. Because you recognize that in order to head towards that, it's far bigger than you. And so, it can't possibly be only on you, or within only your control. So actually, being able to emphasize the vision first is part of what a great leader does.

Jen: So true. And the great leader who casts the vision would then rely on other people and their areas of expertise, thinking about different departments within an organization to identify what the missions need to be in order to bring us closer and closer and closer to this vision.

Pete: Yeah. I love the way you emphasize missions as a plural, too. Because I feel like there are often so many different missions that maybe run in parallel or may be a part of one person's workstream or projects, that it's not just one. So I feel like I'm already rethinking all of these words as individual components. And I'm curious, what was some of the takeaways for others in terms of the workshops that you ran around this? And is it something you're encouraging people to be like, "Do away with missionvisionvalues. And actually, think about: Values. Vision." Like, what's the punchline?

Jen: Well, the punchline is that for this group of independent artists, the title of the seminar was You Are The CEO Of Your Own Business.

Pete: Oh, I love this.

Jen: And then, when they got into the room, I said, "And this is the last time we're using the term CEO, but I had to put it in the title because you knew what that meant. But instead, we're going to adopt this idea of Simon Sinek's from The Infinite Game, that you are the CVO of your own business, the Chief Vision Officer." And in a world that feels increasingly urgent and demands so much instant attention, it's easy to become so hyper-focused on the missions because they are urgent, they have deadlines, they have to be completed, that you lose sight of the vision. And so, the purpose of today was to really ask people to refresh their vision for the career that they're building and why they're building it and what ultimately they're trying to do with their work. But what was fascinating was hearing people talk about how they were more motivated by values alignment than vision alignment, because when they're working in an industry like the theater, it's kind of like you've already bought into some sort of vision, to be there in the first place. But it's the values piece that really seemed to help people understand who they wanted to collaborate with and on what kinds of projects.

Pete: I absolutely echo that same sentiment in corporate land. Like the amount of people I know that are like, "Yeah, I mean, I'm working for like a software company that delivers logistical efficiencies for supply chains in Japan. Like, it's pretty random. However, the people that I work with and the values that this organization has are so in alignment with how I want to, you know, live my life, that the fact that the product is random almost doesn't matter to me. Or the vision is slightly sort of obscure, it's like not actually as important to me as the values that this organization has." So, I totally agree with that. And then, the other thing I was thinking as you were sharing is this idea that you are the CEO or the CVO of your own career. I know you were saying this in the context of a bunch of creative artists, but I really feel like it's such an interesting thing to think about as an individual within a company. Or as a leader...because we have many of them that listen to this...it's like, what is your individual vision? What are your individual series or sets of missions? And what are your individual values, not just the company's? And I think that actually this idea of, yeah, you're the CEO or the CVO of your own life, as opposed to your own career, is like just a really interesting noodle to think about.

Jen: Yeah. I find it very powerful. Powerful and empowering.

Pete: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And confronting, if you haven't thought about it, because you're like, "Oh yeah, maybe I haven't thought about what my vision is. What am I actually trying to do here?"

Jen: Well, the other thing that came up a lot today which I just found so fascinating, you know, as an actor, you have a vision for your work, you have a vision for your characters, you have a vision for your career. And when you accept a job as an actor, you are then there to support the vision of the director. And sometimes, there can be a little tension there with, "How much can I contribute? And should I even speak up? And what if I think something different?" And there are no easy answers here. But it was really helpful for these actors to articulate that they do indeed have a vision. And sometimes their job is to bring someone else's vision to life. Like, both of those things can be true at the same time.

Pete: Totally agree, totally agree. Well, I feel like you have debunked, demystified, picked apart the phrase "missionvisionvalues". And I see, in the same way that I saw once upon a time when I was a child that L-M-N-O-P is five separate letters, I see that these are actually three distinct words. And if we focus on one of them over the other in the context that we're in, it actually changes, and can change how we show up as creatives, as leaders, as humans. So, thank you.

Jen: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.