Planning based on your institution's mission and vision

Many learning organizations offer similar courses, yet their students report remarkably different experiences and outcomes. How can that be, if the content is identical? The reality is that your course content is just a part of the learning equation. A large component has to do with how the content is framed, contextualized, and then applied. Each ties to the primary mission and vision of your organization.

As your organization decides what it wants to be in the world, and how it wants to make an impact, it must devise its primary mission, that is, the how we will do it component to the overarching what our ideal world looks like question. If you think this sounds a bit utopian, you are right. It does; it is. The best learning organizations want to create a better world, even if that utopia will never actually exist in the real world, and, to get there, they need to determine action steps, which translate to a mission implemented by...