RN, Intensive Care Cert, BEd, Clinical Nurse Educator, Intensive Care Unit, St Vincent's Private Hospital
[Abstract] [Introduction] [What is a Mission and what are Values?] [Why mission and Values need to be Communicated] [How Mission and Values are Communicated in Other Organisations] [The Importance of Communicating Mission and Values at St Vincent's Campus, Darlinghurst] [Mission Education - Current Format] [Reviewing the Effectiveness of Communicating Mission and Values] [What can be Learned from Comments made in the Evaluations] [The Way Forward] [References]
Communicating mission and values effectively to the employees of an organisation has become important in the current business climate. This paper explores why some organisations recognise mission and values to be an important feature of their organisational culture, and how some commentators see them as being most effectively communicated. St Vincent's Campus, Darlinghurst communicates the mission and values of the Sisters of Charity to its employees through a Mission Education Programme. The second part of this paper reviews the effectiveness of communicating the mission and values by using this method. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate the Mission Education Programme, and strive to improve upon it.
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This paper explores two major topics:
The Sisters of Charity are a Catholic order of nuns who run the Sisters of Charity Health Service, of which St Vincent's Campus is 'a part. The exploration of these two areas will lead me to comment on ways in which the current mission education programme at the campus (for which I am one of four facilitators) could be communicated more effectively.
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St. Vincent's Private Hospital (1997:1) states: 'The Hospital is seen as a means of sharing the mission of the Church with all who come through our doors. The values of the Sisters of Charity are the foundation of our mission.' A good mission statement defines the purpose of an organisation and the business itself, and inspires the employees so that their efforts are expended in the same direction for the benefit of all stakeholders. The whole statement should both project and reflect the desired culture of the company as well as its promise to customers.
For values 1 shall quote Sr. Moran, RSM (1986:42): 'Values can be defined as a set of convictions that are freely chosen, cherished, publicly affirmed and compel action.' The best values statements express the way people will behave, rather than the beliefs on which the company relies. Behaviour is much easier to modify and measure than beliefs, which are so personal and deep seated that they rarely change in adults. By defining behaviour standards, each employee can understand the values of the company and is empowered to express them in their own personal way.
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For an organisation that espouses both mission and values, serious consideration must be given to developing and communicating them to the employees. More and more organisations are stating that they have a mission and work from a basis of specific values. Why is this? James Strong, the Chief Executive at Qantas in The Australian Way (1995) puts his own views forward. He is concerned that vision, mission and culture in some organisations are buzz words and nothing more. In his view they help mould the organisation's atmosphere, characteristics and attitude. He goes on to explain what he sees as important facets of an organisation: atmosphere, people, communications, trust and credibility, focus on outcomes, ownership, management responsibility, rejecting poor performance, involvement, celebrating success and matching behaviour in organisations. His conclusion is that the mission, vision and culture of an organisation can develop the positive and beneficial facets outlined and prevent the negative ones. He is realistic enough to realise that no organisation is ever going to be perfect, but feels that with effort and personal commitment, every organisation has the capacity to improve, and that vision, mission and culture facilitate that improvement.
In examining companies that succeed, it is often stated that one of the key attributes is having employees that work towards a common goal with common understandings of how to get there. These organisations, through their mission, vision and values have a core which holds them together in times of change, and give them the flexibility to adapt to and benefit from that change. Collins and Porras (1996) identify some examples of these types of companies: Hewlett Packard; 3M; Johnson & Johnson; Procter & Gamble; Merck; Sony; Motorola and Nordstrom.
Collins and Porras (1996:66) identify truly great companies as those which '... understand the difference between what should never change and what should be open for change, between what is genuinely sacred and what is not.' Collins and Porras (1996:66-67) further identify mission and values to be:'the glue that holds an organisation together as it grows, decentralises, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace diversity.' Most of the above companies only have between 3 to 5 core values, because they are so fundamental in nature.
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Mission and values are seen by the management of some of the world's most successful companies to be vital to the long term health of the organisation. How then, do they communicate these vital components to the employees? Once mission and values are established and clearly defined, (often a strong team building exercise for employees at all levels) employees must, ' ... hear their leaders repeatedly state these basics like a mantra' and these leaders must ' ... mandate programs and practices to integrate those values into the practical, daily aspects of organisational life.' ( Health Progress, March 1995:23) This ensures shared meaning, which this same article emphasises. 'If it to have any meaning, .a vision must be held broadly within the organisationnot just within the formal leadership.' (Health Progress, March 1995:23) This also applies to the recruitment of staff where the mission and values are clearly explained before the employee joins the organisation, so that if their values do not fit with those of the organisation they may think twice about accepting the job.
Moran (1986:54) talks about modelling the behaviours implied in the values statement 'The modelling of appropriate behaviour must occur at each level of the organisation. Ultimately, employees will model these same behaviours', as well as repetition, practical implementation, sharing meaning, recruitment techniques and modelling behaviour. Fitzpatrick (1988:101) states that leaders must be committed to mission and values, and in communicating them, point out how they connect all employees, 'Effective communication flows from awareness of the potential commonness among people. In the hospital milieu, the ground for this commonness stems from concern for the patient ... Administrators intent on improving communication must make staff aware of this indispensable interconnectedness and of the importance of each person's role ...'.
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Although modern technology may provide a more expedient way to transmit information, it is useless without human communication, which alone can produce human co-operation'. This human touch in communicating values and mission is all important due to the nature of the information to be communicated. If a memo was sent round saying -these are the new mission and values they would never become part of the organisations' culture.
Culture is a lived experience, emphasised by ceremonies, rituals and common understandings which are passed on to new members by established colleagues. Culture is part of the human experience. So in organisations, developing a mission and vision as well as making statements about values that underpin acceptable behaviour, are ways of developing a culture that can stand the organisation in good stead through times of trouble and times of change. In times of stability these inherent aspects are built upon, new stories are told and new meanings are identified, that follow on from the changes that have occurred, ensuring that the mission and values are still valid and useful in the changing organisation. If they have been well enough developed and are core to the business, they will not require much alteration, but they do need to be communicated effectively to ensure they continue to be inherent to the organisations' functioning.
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The Sisters of Charity Health Service (SCHS) manages the campus at Darlinghurst. It also manages other health care facilities around Australia. The Darlinghurst campus is aiming to become integrated. Part of that integration campaign is to run Mission Education locally. The SCHS is dedicated to ensuring all employees understand the mission vision, values and philosophy of the organisation, as the values were the ones that the Sisters have used over the 150 years to inform their behaviour. The mission has served to drive them towards their vision of developing leading health care facilities throughout Australia, that reflect the Sister's values and philosophy. This vision is always used to guide the strategic plans of each facility and the mission, values and philosophy indicate how the plan is to be realised. So for the SCHS these statements are intrinsic to the culture that is part of their vision of what a leading health care facility should be like. So how do they communicate this to the employees?
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Mission education is currently planned and facilitated by the three Directors of Mission of the three facilities on campus and myself, who has been through the mission education as it was when it was run from the centre. The sessions are run on a modular based format with unit one focussing on mission and values, unit two focussing on philosophy and values and unit three focussing on the service of the poor.
Each unit comprises of two sessions, run separately, and allocated a 2 hour time frame. All employees across the campus are encouraged to attend, especially those in management positions. What is said in the sessions is treated with confidentiality, and this is stressed tepeatedly. The format of these sessions varies, but encompasses use of audio-visual aids, time for personal reflection, small and large group work and discussion, written and verbal feedback on reflection or group work, tasks to accomplish between sessions and evaluation after completing each unit. Our aim as facilitators is to raise awareness and understanding of mission and values, and show how they are relevant to the participant's day-to-day work. It is vital that this part is not missed as it is only by these employees being aware of how values can be put into practice, that the shared meaning, repetition and modelling aspect of communication mentioned earlier can occur.
Managers are particularly encouraged to attend so that their leadership in their area of responsibility reflects the mission and values. It will also give them insight into strategic planning and how to implement it. The Directors of Mission are also in charge of the ongoing organisational aspects of implementing the mission. They organise events that strengthen the lived experience of the mission. They liaise with various groups within the hospital to ensure that for example the values and mission are explained to every potential employee, or that hospital policies and procedures consider the mission in their development. They also help produce the campus-wide magazine which relates events and activities around the campus to all staff. They are also there for any one-to-one discussion related to mission and values that any employee wishes to bring up. They have many other responsibilities but these are the main ones which help communicate the mission and values.
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To help to review this I collected comments taken from the evaluation forms completed at the end of unit's one and two. Many of the comments I reviewed show great insight. To me, this means that the informal communication of mission and values has already impacted on some employees, despite not having previously undertaken formal education in this area. When reviewing the evaluations of the mission and vision sessions, I found that there were no negative comments. When I reviewed the evaluations of the values and philosophy sessions, some participants noted problems and some had suggestions for improvement:
The philosophy should be more multicultural in focus, to reflect the multicultural background of the staff.
I found the philosophy statement too Catholic for me to believe in it.
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Basically the good comments outweighed the bad, which shows that for the majority we are achieving positive learning outcomes. The spin offs of evidence of campus integration occurring at these sessions is important, as integration is a fundamental goal in the strategic plans of all the facilities. Most of the negative comments stem from the religious nature of some of the language used in the mission and philosophy statements. When these issues were raised in the sessions it was stressed that a belief in the statements was not required to work in the organisation, but an understanding of them was. In retrospect, maybe some more unpacking of that aspect of the philosophy statement might be required, if anyone in the class raises concerns about the religious nature of the statements. This by no means happened in every group, which indicates that most were happy to accept the language. I myself am not Catholic, but I am prepared to accept the language on an understanding basis rather than one of belief. It is this emphasis that we should concentrate on communicating.
The problem identified by one participant of those staff coming from a non-English speaking background is one that all organisations face in many different contexts. Translation of the mission and values into the commonly spoken languages in the organisation may help part of this problem, but the discussion surrounding concepts related to mission and values would be harder to facilitate. In this type of course that discussion is the key to the communication of mission and values, so alternative ways of facilitating, maybe by training up a speaker of the languages to facilitate some sessions to which speakers of that language could come, would have to be found. The current teaching format used appears to be working, with most staff participating quite actively. This may reflect the group size which is usually 10 to 20 people. All facilitators adopt experiential learning techniques and principles of adult learning. The style is acceptable as evidenced by the enthusiasm with which they participate not only in session time but also in applying themselves to the tasks given between sessions. The evaluations are read by all facilitators and we hold meetings to check on progress and problems and plan for future sessions.
Overall, the programme as it currently runs appears to be effective in communicating mission and values throughout the campus, in a formal way, but the evaluations also show evidence of the mission and values being informally communicated by the sorts of people who are going through the formal programme. We hope that this will have an accumulative effect throughout the campus, not only raising awareness of mission and values but also having spin off effects in terms of campus integration.
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By undertaking this review and looking closely at how mission and values can be communicated within an organisation, and how they are communicated at St Vincent's campus, I have gained some insight into new strategies that could be used to facilitate this communication. I have outlined these strategies here and I will be discussing these, and the learning I have gained, with my fellow facilitators. This should help guide our planning of future mission education.
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Cahill, P. J. D. (1986) Modelling Faith, Honesty, & Justice, Health Progress, June:54-56.
Collins, J. C. & Porras, J. 1. (1996) Building Your Company's Vision, Harvard Business Review, September-October:65-77.
Fitzpatrick, A. M. C. S. J. (1988) The Six C's of Effective Communication, Health Progress, March:96-101.
Moran, C. R. S. M. (1986) Building a Faith Community: Proclamation and Performance, Health Progress, June:40-44.
St Vincents Private Hospital, Sydney. (1997) A Tradition of Caring, St Vincent's Private Hospital Review.
Strong, J. (1995), The Australian Way, Qantas In-flight Magazine, March, 4-5.
Understanding Culture: Key Messages For Leadership (1995), Health Progress, March, 20-24.
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