Management by Mission

By Pramod Gurung

Human Resource Development is a philosophy shared by managers who believe development of people to be their primary responsibility. It involves a strategy of linking organization development with individual growth. The question arises whether the individual’s growth and development or the organization’s development is given a priority, or whether one automatically follows the other. Look at the management of charity organizations like temples and churches. Peter Drucker, the management guru was also at a loss to explain the organization behaviour and the management styles of these organizations. He commented that with his fifty odd years’ experience in management, he was still not in a position to fathom the principles underlying the management of these organizations.

Could it be Management by Mission? Could it be that the individuals at the helm of affairs imbibed the missionary zeal which resulted in the organization development or the organization climate and culture were such that made these individuals committed and dedicated to their goals? Such questions are easy to pose but difficult to answer. This article is a modest attempt to probe "Management by Mission".

The three key words, to start with, need explaining - Activity, Goal and Mission. Activity consists of isolated acts put in a chain or sequence, goal is an activity with a purpose ;and mission is a goal with a purpose which is internalized. Let me put this into a paradigm: Every activity is goal-directed. An extremely poor fisherman started fishing to earn his livelihood. Here fishing is an activity and earning his livelihood is his goal. This continued activity helped him to collect so much of wealth that earning his livelihood is no more a problem for him. Since the goal is no more, the activity should discontinue. But the fisherman continues fishing. It becomes self sustaining, it has become functionally autonomous, it has become a mission for that man and the goal has been internalized. The activity and the goal are no longer separate, but merged. This is mission. Let me define the mission in my own way:

Where there is no excuse for omission or commission, where there is no need for permission or submission. "Mission is a dedication to the cause for which it stands."

Maslow explains self-actualization in the following words: A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is self-actualization. There are two approaches to management by mission: One is Mission at the individual level and the other is at the organizational level. The individual goes to the organization with his personality, i.e his ability and motivation, and he likes to examine his role in the organization through exploration and testing. He has certain expectations from the organization based on his performance, and if these expectations are belied, his role perception gets shattered and he turns himself into an apathetic employee. The extrinsic reward system may maintain his level of performance, but he would hardly achieve self-actualisation.

Mission at the organisational level: MOCSHA APPROACH

When the individual’s goal merges with the organization’s goal, the individual develops with the organization. The initiative for individual’s development would depend upon several factors, the most important among them being the explicitness of the organization, work rules, the patterns of interaction among its members and the values and assets that the organization represents, the co-operation among people and achievement of results that the design of the work the organization promotes; and - the decision making and problem solving systems through which the management conveys its concern for human growth to individuals.

Management by Mission is an integration of the isolated activities of the individuals into a coherent whole to achieve the organizational goal with a purpose so as to become a functionally autonomous one for the organization.

The Human Resource Development approach has the above philosophical perspective. It encompasses employees as a whole and does not confine itself to development of managerial manpower. The Human Resource Development perspective has to examine intrinsic factors for human satisfaction. In this sense, Human Resource Development approaches come close to quality of worklife and organizational development through Management by Mission.

MOCSHA Approach

M- Mission of the organization.
O- Objectives of the organization long term (self sustaining and individualized)
C- Clear targets.
S- Strategies for achievement of targets.
H- Humanising the strategies.
A- Activities of the people.

(Gurung is an M.B.A second year student of "IIMM" Pune (India) with specialization in Marketing & Information Technology)

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