Mission Mastery: Building a Learning Organization in Which There Is Space to Lead

It is now clear that Mastery consists of five Pillars that need to be implemented as ‘a package’. I will summarise some of the approaches different organizations are taking/have taken on their respective paths to Mission Mastery. This will hopefully help answer the question: “How should I go about this in my organization?” Clearly an organization with an unrealistic strategy linked to a flawed structure and haphazard leadership development process faces an enormous challenge. A transformational change is a slow, complex process that cannot be put to bed in just 6 months. It is a significant culture change programme that needs to verify resilience of the four variables (the Pillars), in a logical sequence. For example if leadership development, potential assessment and experiential training need to be introduced this will not work if any organization design shortcomings have not been redressed first. The most common failings seem to be unawareness of the key variables involved and the assumption that culture change is an input, such as a few million $ on the training budget, that can be controlled, while underestimating the complexity and inter-linkage of key activities and the time needed to achieve the change. One or all of these may contrive to de-rail the initiative. Awareness of the need to implement Mission Mastery is merely the first step.