你的团队（或机构、教会、甚至个人）的使命让你明确知道方向，影响你的策略，并且和团队目的共同是你做出重要决策的基准。
使命宣言阐明了你的使命，让所有相关的人（领导者、团队成员、合作伙伴、目标受众、顾客、等等）知道你们要成就何事。对你和团队来说，它可以提醒并帮助你不偏离航向。对其他人来说，它显明你们与其他团队或机构的分别。
过去二十多年与许多团队协作的经验中，我常看到的使命宣言，有些太模棱两可，以致完全不能给我有用的信息。有些却太过一般，以致任何团队都能够适用。
这些模棱两可及一般的使命宣言，根本就是毫无用处。
Leadership involves making decisions.
Getting a team to move towards fulfilling its goals involves numerous decisions.
But right from the get-go, there is one important decision that a leader needs to make. This decision will shape the leader and the team in a profound way. It will affect how he or she leads, how the team interact with the leader, the culture of the team, etc.
Your team’s (or organisation, church, and even personal) mission gives clarity to your direction, informs your strategies and, together with your purpose, forms the basis of all your critical decisions.
The mission statement spells out your mission so that stakeholders (the team leader, team members, partners, target audience, customers, etc.) knows what you do. For yourself and your team, it serves as a reminder to help you stay on course. For others, it helps to differentiate you from other teams or organisations.
As I work with teams during the past 20 years, I often come across mission statements that are either so vague that they don’t tell me anything useful, or are so generic that they could just as well be the mission statement of another team!
These vague or generic mission statements are practically useless.
Continue reading “Tips for crafting an effective mission statement”
“你们的团队的使命是什么？” 我问在场的团队成员。
他们都能把使命宣言一字不漏地背诵出来。
“非常好！” 我接着问：“请解释宣言的意思。”
我接下来听到的是对团队使命的几种不同解读。还有， “哦，我以为这项的意思是…”，“诶，这里应该是指…”，“我不认为这是我们份内该做的…”，等。
这不是一个孤立的事件。
“What is your team’s mission?” I asked the team members in the room.
They recited their mission statement, verbatim.
“Great! What does it mean?” I asked again.
What followed was several different explanations about the team’s mission. And “Oh, I thought this meant…”, “Wait, wasn’t this supposed to be…”, “I don’t think that’s part of what we do…”, etc.
This wasn’t an isolated incident.
