Step 3 Identify and Understand Stakeholders, Develop and Refine Mission and Values, and Consider Developing a Vision Sketch
Purpose of Step
The purpose of Step 3 is to help planners understand more about the organization’s stakeholders, clarify the organization’s mission and values, and perhaps develop a vision statement to guide the rest of the process. The key to success for public and nonprofit organizations is satisfying important stakeholders according to each stakeholder’s criteria for satisfaction. Mission, values, and vision should therefore be thought about in relation to those stakeholders.
Stakeholders
A stakeholder is any person, group, or organization that can place a claim on the organization’s resources, attention, or output or is affected by its output. A stakeholder analysis is the means for identifying who the organization’s internal and external stakeholders are, how they evaluate the organization, how they influence the organization, what the organization needs from them, and how important they are. A stakeholder analysis is particularly useful in providing valuable information about the political situation facing the organization.
The results of a stakeholder analysis can form the basis for the development and refinement of a mission statement, and they can also help determine who should be involved in the strategic planning process. (That is why the readiness assessment in Step 1 involved some preliminary stakeholder analysis.) Whom you involve in this process and how you involve them will go a long way toward determining whose process it is in practice and how successful you are likely to be in implementing any plans that are developed. (Additional detailed advice on stakeholder analyses can be found in Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, fourth edition [Bryson, 2011], especially Chapters Three and Four and Resource A; also see Bryson, 2004.)
Mission
In Step 3, the organization’s mission is identified, developed, and refined—a process that may also include clarifying the organization’s values.
A mission statement is an action-oriented formulation of the organization’s purpose, which in combination with the mandates provides the organization’s reason for existence. A mission statement answers this question: Ultimately, what are we here to do, and why? The mission statement should be developed in light of who the organization’s stakeholders are and how the organization might create public value.
The mission statement for your organization should also define, in a broad-brush way, how the organization proposes to get from where it is to where it wants to go. The statement should be meaningful yet concise.
Values
Values underpin how the organization operates. If an organization wants to develop a values statement, the starting point should be the following questions: How do we want to conduct our business? How do we want to treat our key stakeholders? What do we value—in other words, what do we really care about? A statement of organizational values can be extremely helpful for understanding the organization’s culture and the issues it faces and for developing organizational goals and strategies.
Vision
A vision statement—often called a vision of success—describes what the organization should look like as it successfully implements its strategies and achieves its full potential. An organization typically has to go through more than one cycle of strategic planning before it can develop an effective vision for itself. A vision of success is therefore more likely to be a guide to strategy implementation than to strategy formulation. That is why Step 8 is explicitly devoted to developing a vision of success.
Nonetheless, many organizations find it very useful to develop a vision sketch in Step 3, as a guide for the rest of the planning process and for the plan itself. The sketch is unlikely to be so detailed as a full-blown vision of success but can still be useful in directing participant attention in subsequent steps. For example, planners can use a vision sketch in identifying strategic issues and formulating strategies to address those issues. All that is really necessary to enhance organizational achievement is to identify a few key issues and to do something effective about them. Nonetheless, if the planning group thinks it makes sense to develop a vision sketch, the group should do so.
Possible Desired Planning Outcomes
An inclusive list of stakeholders and an analysis of how, where, when, and why to involve them in the process (beyond the preliminary analysis done in Step 1)
A draft mission statement
A draft values statement
A vision sketch
Worksheet Directions
Stakeholders
Have your strategic planning team brainstorm a list of stakeholders (Worksheet 18) and fill out an analysis worksheet for each (Worksheets 19 and 20). See Resource B for brainstorming guidelines.
Then figure out where each stakeholder should be located on a power versus interest grid (Worksheet 21). The grid arrays stakeholders in terms of their power to affect the organization and their interest in the organization’s work and mission.
On the basis of these analyses, evaluate the involvement of stakeholders in the strategic planning process (Worksheets 22 and 23). If the planning effort is to be successful and if planned strategies are to be implemented, both the process and the plan need to involve and “speak to” key stakeholders. One important area of possible involvement for both internal and external stakeholders is development of the mission statement. Stakeholders may also need to be involved in development of the values statement and vision sketch.
Mission
Identify and organize any existing mission-related materials. Have the strategic planning team review the materials before filling out Worksheet 24. Have participants fill out Worksheet 24 as individuals first and then discuss the
answers as a group.
Have one person or a small group prepare a draft mission statement. Circulate the draft to stakeholders for their comments. Expect to revisit the mission statement throughout the process.
Values
Consider developing an explicit statement of values that indicates how your organization wants to operate and to relate to key stakeholders. Values such as respect, trust, honesty, integrity, and teamwork are often emphasized in such statements. The values statement should articulate a code of behavior to which the organization adheres or aspires.
Have the planning team collect any values-related material and review and discuss it. If there is none, consider developing it through group discussions with your team and key stakeholders. The values discussion can often identify strategic issues. Fill out Worksheet 25.
Have one person or a small group prepare a draft values statement and then have the planning team discuss it. Circulate drafts to key stakeholders for their comments. Expect to revisit the values statement throughout the process.
Vision Sketch
Have the planning team collect any vision-related materials and documents. Review and discuss these, then consider developing a vision sketch through group discussions with your team and key stakeholders. Think about the organization’s mission and what its basic philosophy and values, strategies, and performance criteria are or should be. Think about how the organization would look if it were creating as much public value as possible.
Have the planning team members or key stakeholder representatives work individually to fill out Worksheet 26. The whole group should then share and discuss everyone’s answers (perhaps after having small subgroups discuss their members’ individual answers first).
Following the discussion, request that one person or a small group prepare a draft vision sketch. Then circulate drafts to key stakeholders for their comments and make modifications as appropriate until general agreement is reached. Expect to revisit the vision sketch throughout the process and especially in Step 8. Like the mission and values statements, the sketch and any subsequent vision of success will change as the organization and the factors affecting the organization change.