With many strategic plans behind me, I have always been very frustrated by the lack of connection that sometimes exists in companies between the mission and the strategy. Moreover, at times the mission can be so philosophical and spurious that hardly anyone knows about it, or it's simply a chart on a wall. But in management by missions (MbM), the mission is at the core of the strategy and everything revolves around more than three-year earnings.

Management by objectives has certain limitations that are not easily resolved by adding non-financial objectives or by importing a system of values from outside the management system. What is required is a new management system capable of guiding and enriching objectives. Management by missions (MbM) both resolves the problems inherent to management by objectives and incorporates other innovative proposals developed in recent years, such as management by competencies and management by values. MbM is based on dividing up the corporate mission into different missions at every level of the organization. Each individual mission forms part of a higher mission, so everyone contributes to the corporate mission, which is then implemented through objectives. Objectives have no value in themselves, but are simply the means employed to fulfill the mission. This new management philosophy is much richer and better able to persuade people to identify with the company they work for, thus ensuring greater output at every level of the organization.

Defining the Mission

The first problem encountered when implementing MbM is defining the corporate mission. Not just any definition will do. In fact, many of the mission definitions that companies use don't work with MbM and aren't really missions at all, in the strictest sense of the word. In MbM, a mission at a specific level is defined as a contribution that characterizes the identity of that level. Accordingly, a company mission must be a contribution that characterizes the identity of the company, while a team mission must be a contribution that characterizes the identity of the team. There does not only have to be one mission at each level, but whatever missions there are must be part of that level's identity.

The mission must fulfill three key characteristics: content, credibility and urgency.

Deploying the Mission

Once the company mission has been defined, the challenge facing MbM is to make it operational at every level of the organization so that it is not just a set of platitudes. This is achieved by deploying shared missions that contribute to the higher mission. In fact, shared missions are basically an area of responsibility geared toward fulfilling the higher mission and must satisfy three criteria: inclusiveness, complementarity and consistency.

Monitoring the Mission

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. For this reason, the implementation of an MbM system requires the creation of a mission scorecard (MS). This scorecard is a powerful driver of leadership and promotes greater consistency between the mission and corporate practice.

Tying Objectives to the Mission

Once the missions at the various levels have been established, they must be made operational through specific objectives. The mission and the objectives are mutually dependent: a mission without objectives is a dead mission and an objective without a mission is a blind objective. In this model, as in MbO, objectives are a key component of the system, with one very specific and clear proviso: objectives only make sense when they serve the corporate mission.

In MbM, the aim is not to achieve higher and higher objectives every year but to fulfill the mission more efficiently. It is not enough to increase objectives by, say, 2% or 5%, unless that increase is a means for fulfilling the mission. They might need to be increased by 50%, or cut by 20%. It is the mission that gives meaning to the objectives, not the other way around.

Performance Evaluation

There is a direct relationship between how a company is managed and how employee performance is assessed. In MbM integral assessment is used: in other words, a model focused on employee contribution to the mission. This method combines the achievement of mission objectives with qualitative or intangible aspects such as personal behavior or competency development.

Benefits of MbM

1.     It increases commitment and leadership among the members of the organization.

2.     It breaks functional silos and improves cooperation between areas and departments.

3.     It improves communication and facilitates strategy deployment.

4.     It promotes new idea generation and personal involvement.

5.     It increases motivation.

6.     It improves the working atmosphere.

In short, in MbM the mission is no longer secondary or symbolic but structures the management system and affects the way we understand success. And so we go from the failure of the mission to the success of the mission. Management by missions is a more human, richer and—out of a sense of mission—more demanding way of managing companies, one better able to guide and give meaning to the work people do.