Mission Possible was authored by Paul Rubery, MD, member of the Board of Directors of JRGOS and the Marjorie Strong Wehle Professor and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester.
Paul Rubery, MD center, Robert Wilson, MD, and Mathew Iggy, MD with Howard Residents after Dr. Rubery’s lecture onSurgical Intervention of the Aging Spine January 2024.
My friends in business march to a different drummer. Sometimes, in their world, they may appear to value self-aggrandizement and using fancy terms to describe rather mundane activities. The differences in our approaches to life and our professions can be so stark that sometimes I reflexively avoid considering the tools and concepts of the business world. But when it comes to core or shared values, and mission and vision statements, that avoidance would be a mistake. So I humbly submit that implementing certain business tools in your professional life and in your professional organizations can help you achieve professional success.
Values are our bedrock principles for building our lives and our organizations and shaping the development of a mission. They are the concepts which are important to us. Values may seem self-evident to an individual, but it is a mistake to assume that those with whom you enjoy friendship will automatically share your exact same values.
A great first step in career planning is to identify your core values. Developing this self-awareness will help you to navigate your evolving career, provide anchors for difficult decisions, and will guide you in assessing whether new opportunities or organizations align with your core values.
Core values rarely change. Attempting to pursue an opportunity or join an organization whose values you do not share will likely result in failure. While there are numerous values that may be unique to you, I submit that four core values are critical to success in orthopaedic surgery.
The first core value is a commitment to excellence in all that you do, but particularly in your professional career. This value needs little explanation to those performing surgery. The second is moderation in all things. This value may be a bit controversial; however, excessive personal or professional habits, excessive work, or excess in spending or business decisions are a recipe for crisis and potentially disaster. The third is persistence. Anyone who has completed the lengthy medical education pathway with its predictable setbacks knows exactly how important persistence is. Finally, a surgeon needs to value resilience. The ability to bounce back and to rise above challenges is an absolute necessity in the life we have chosen.
Identifying a mission statement is the next key to achieving professional and
organizational success. A PubMed search for “mission statement” yields surprisingly few results in the medical literature. Despite this, identifying your mission and developing your own mission statement are arguably the key steps in setting your career trajectory.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Prof. Casadejesus-Masanell described mission as “why we exist.” Distilling “why you exist” into a well-written statement can be surprisingly difficult and yet enormously helpful. Prof. Dan Pallotta, also in the Harvard Business Review, writes that being on a mission is the first step, and that the mission statement will follow. He points to Bruce Springsteen who said, “More than anything else – more than fame or wealth or even happiness – I just wanted to be great.”
Professor Casadejesus-Masanell believes that a mission statement, for example desiring to be great, can be impactful if it is unequivocal and the product of a passion or commitment for creating something never seen before. For him, the mission statement should convey energy, without equivocation, without too much jargon, and without prevarication. Who among us doesn’t remember studying late at night and thinking, “I just want to get into medical school,” or “I just want to be a board-certified surgeon.”
Once you have formulated your individual or your organization’s mission statement you will find many uses for it. As the Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedics at the University of Rochester, I start each of our department meetings by projecting onto a screen our statement for all the attendees. Professor Casadejesus-Masanell tells us that the existence of an acknowledged mission statement helps to establish boundaries in strategic decision making, provides a stable purpose in changing times, coordinates priorities, alerts those with different values to adapt or leave, and communicates purpose to all stakeholders. There is no question that this makes meetings more collegial and productive!
Finally, consider that the mission can either craft or refine the larger vision. Professor Casadejesus-Masanell defines a vision statement as “what future we wish to create.” In many cases, defining a vision of the future is easier for people and for organizations than defining the mission. However, refining that vision through the lens of the mission statement and building that future on a foundation of core or shared values is the harder work.
Effective people and organizations develop a vision, which can then be broken down into separate identifiable goals. Each of these goals should be scrutinized in the light of the mission and the values of the individual or the organization. Unfortunately, physicians and others in healthcare are great at developing goals, but relatively poor at being able to bring those goals to fruition for a multitude of reasons.
In his book, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, UCLA Anderson School of Management Professor Richard P. Rumelt points out that having goals are great, but that goals alone rarely become reality without a strategy. Strategies are the coordinated and coherent action steps that result in reaching a goal. Developing a thoughtful, executable strategy, and choosing what you are not going to do are the necessary steps to reach your goals, realize your vision and execute your mission, whether as an individual or for an organization.
Successful professionals and organizations in healthcare are not successful by accident, only by design. Adopting well known business management techniques – including a values assessment, a mission statement, a vision statement, and an executable strategy – are critical to achieving personal and organizational success.
Submitted by Paul Rubery, MD
Further readings:
1. Casadejesus-Masanell R. (ed), “Setting Aspirations, Mission, Vision, and Values”
in Core Curriculum/Strategy, Harvard Business Review, 2022
2. Pallotta D, “Do You Have a Mission Statement, or Are You on a Mission?” in
Harvard Business Review, HBR.org, 2011
3. Rumelt R, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy The Difference and Why it Matters,
