Mission
Before you contemplate your strategy, it is a good idea to return to the fundamentals; the mission. When your organization does not know ‘why the organization is here on earth,’ it is easy to be driven off course. What is the mission of the organization and which core values accompany that? What is the success formula, or the business idea? Determining or reaffirming the mission is a logical first step of the strategy process.

Knowing where you stand and what you are good at is essential to determining a (medium)long term strategy. Assistence from an external, independent party often helps to bring the right questions up for discussion. De Ruijter Strategy assisted among others the Dutch government agency CIBG, part of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports, in the run-up to their policy plan 2012-2015 with formulating the mission and the success story.

Vision
Besides developing scenarios for the future and determining the options you have as an organization to be successful in those scenarios, it is important to know which vision you have for the future. Where would you like to go with the organization? The vision is an imaginary point of reference (‘dot on the horizon’) with which you can elucidate prospective strategic decisions. By thinking as an organization (business, board, institution) together with all stakeholders about the vision, a shared point of reference comes into existence. This can ensure that the organization will more easily follow the course of the vision because everybody is facing the same direction.

Would you like to know more about how we can be of service designing and conducting mission and/or vision explorations? Contact us at +31 (0) 20 625 02 14, or email Jolanda van Heijningen: jolanda@deruijter.net