Every few years, like clockwork, organizations gather the leadership team, hire a consultant, and embark on a grand rewrite of their msiiion, vision, and values. Off-site meetings are planned. Whitboards are filled. Slogans are debated with near-religious ferver. After weeks of work, the final version is unveiled - clean, inspiring, and maybe even printed on office walls.

Then it gets promptly ignored. Why?

Symbolism over Substance

Let's call it what it is: organizational theatre. Enormous time and energy go into crafting the perfect string of aspirational words, but rarely are those words embedded into actual behaviors, decision making, or operations. Why? Because it’s easier to tweak language than fix culture.  

Updating a mission is symbolic. It feels like progress, but unless it’s actively used, it’s little more than a screensaver. It’s nice to look at but totally disconnected from daily work.

The Misalignment Problem

This obsession with polishing the message often masks a deeper issue: misalignment. If teams aren’t living the values, then no amount of wordsmithing will make them meaningful. The problem isn’t that the mission isn’t clear; it’s that it’s irrelevant to how people do their jobs. A “vision” that doesn’t impact priorities, guide trade-offs, or shape leadership behavior is just noise. 

Companies continue this cycle because it’s safe. Revising a mission statement doesn’t require changing how teams operate or holding people accountable. It’s a low-risk, high-visibility way to say, “We’re evolving” without doing the hard work of true cultural change. 

A tool, not a Tagline 

If a mission, vision, or set of values isn’t driving decisions, behaviors, and communication daily, then it’s dead. No refresh will resuscitate it. Before rewriting anything, the more important question is: Why isn’t the current version being used? If the answer is “It doesn’t reflect reality,” then fix the behavior first. Then revisit the language. 

Mission statements should be operational tools, not marketing copy. If employees can’t explain what the values look like in action or how they shape priorities, then the issue isn’t messaging. It’s leadership. 

This article outlines a different model for organizational transformation, one which enrolls the organization’s entire constituency, enabling the participation of stakeholders in conversations for possibilities. This different model encourages organizations to leave their baggage behind, create new opportunity to dream of, and document the "what could be", consistent with the organization's vision.

Start in the Future

Despite best intensions, strategic planning exercises sometimes fizzle out without producing desired results, leaving participants disillusioned and reluctant to re-engage - or worse.

Sound familiar? 

Fortunately, there is a better way - one which begins in the future, includes the setting of outrageous goals, and which is characterized by different terminology.

For example, a description of an organization’s future reality might include:

- the organization's new being is a fully integrated, highly recognized and respected organization representing the interests of all its members.

And a description of the strategic outcomes of that future reality might read:

- the leadership team becomes complete with its past as it was known it to be, honouring all that has been accomplished, with respect and dignity.

-the leadership team transforms into a newly integrated, high-performance team which develops guiding principles and practices, demonstrating unprecedented abilities for teamwork, communications, management, and planning.

- this newly integrated leadership team shifts from a reactive, fly by the seat of its pants culture, to being a well orchestrated and managed team, employing the competence, excellence, and mastery of all team members.

- the newly integrated leadership team develops an actionable, dynamic strategic plan, formulated collectively, communicated powerfully, demonstrating implementation day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year.

- the newly integrated leadership team restores the relationship with its constituencies in such a way that new conversations for possibilities, opportunities and action emerge.

- the newly integrated leadership team designs and *enrolls its entire constituency into its new beginning and its organizational culture, committing to complete integration, collaboration, and co-operation, effectively creating a forward-thinking network of conversations.

Note: * "enrollment" is defined as generating a possibility in another person's listening, such that the other person, group, or organization takes action consistent with that possibility. Note also: this approach starts in the future - at the end point - and works backward to the present. 

In other words, the leadership team creates the organization’s strategic future, transports itself there, and documents the action plan that got it there.

Not rocket-science, but hard to do

The process is difficult because of the natural tendency to hold on to what is known to be, what works, and what doesn’t work. And because there is no shortage of past experiences, and because of a lack of sufficient trust and a collective vision, truly committing to a strategic future does not happen easily.

Using this model, conversations take place against a background of relatedness, either for possibility, to identify opportunity, to specify action, or to resolve breakdowns.

With this model, the leadership team redefines its business, and commits to, and documents:

- its strategic intent (e.g., “the leadership team leads the transformation of the organization into one which is recognized and respected as being world class”)

- its strategic purpose (e.g., “the organization outperforms on every expectation”)

- its new being in the form of a bold promise of what the organization will become

For example, if the organization's strategic purpose was - “within 3 years we outperform on every expectation”, the leadership team would document:

- what that would look like and feel like, and

- what each member of the team would need to do to make that happen 

Using this model, planning is everything - but the plan itself is nothing…

This new model of transformation is not about abandoning planning - it’s about redefining it. It demands that leaders start with an inspiring future, embrace the unknown, and engage their entire organization in the journey forward. By shifting the mindset from incremental improvement to visionary transformation, organizations can unlock their full potential - and thrive in an ever-changing world.