Every organization needs to have a strategic outlook for the future. It is most frequently defined in such important notions as the mission statement, vision statement, core values, and strategic goals and objectives. However, few enterprises manage to formulate them properly. To ensure effective organizational development, it is essential to regularly and critically analyze and evaluate these strategic features. This exercise will allow improving the mission, vision, and core value statements of Southwest Airlines, which in turn will enhance the quality and outcome of interactions with the company’s stakeholders.
Southwest Airlines’ Mission Statement and its Evaluation
The mission statement of Southwest Airlines highlights the company’s dedication to achieving high customer satisfaction with the services it provides. It also contains a reference to the entity’s values, which are defined in it as “a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit” (“The mission of Southwest Airlines,” 1998). The mission statement also includes a section addressed to employees. Its message comes down to granting employees an environment, where they would have equal and diverse opportunities to grow, learn, and innovate in a caring and respectful atmosphere.
Undoubtedly, the mission statement of Southwest Airlines is simplistic and typical, with the latter being defined by Porter as producing “the highest-quality product at the lowest cost” (as cited in Hammonds, 2001). It does not make the company stand out nor provides any insight into what makes this airline different from other businesses in the industry. It is not strictly speaking even a strategy, while being different is fundamental to strategic development and competitiveness of any company (Hammonds, 2001). There is insufficient detail in the way the mission statement is currently formulated. On the bright side, it is intelligible to stakeholders, which is an important prerequisite for its successful realization (Hammonds, 2001). Moreover, it allowed the company to make effective strategic decisions in the past.
Southwest Airlines’ Vision and its Evaluation
Southwest Airlines does not have a vision statement; instead, the mission and vision statements are united. However, it should be noted that the mission statement does not contain any clear references to how the organization sees itself in several years. Judging by some features of the company’s mission, it may be speculated that it envisions itself playing three key roles in the future: being integrated into a community’s make-up by providing means to enhance communal life; being at the forefront of sustainable environmental development through adjusting its operations to this objective; and being responsible to stakeholders for the entity’s performance across all of the relevant areas (including the aforementioned two).
Vision of an organization is as important as its mission and contains a specific appealing image of this organization in the future which it will achieve through realization of the strategic plan (McNamara, n.d.). The vision statement is critical for making actions of employees correspond to the vision and “[helping] them feel proud, excited, motivated, and part of something much bigger than themselves” (Heathfield, n.d.). Hence, when it is vague, workers are detached from strategic development and have no clear …