Our Journey to Defining GerBI’s Vision and Mission
At GerBI, crafting our vision and mission wasn’t just a task, it was a journey. A journey of reflection, discussion, and shared discovery. We asked ourselves the big questions: What do we stand for? Where are we heading together? What drives us? Starting with Why [...]
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GerBI Mission feedback during our retreat
Our Journey to Defining GerBI’s Vision and Mission
At GerBI, crafting our vision and mission wasn’t just a task, it was a journey. A journey of reflection, discussion, and shared discovery. We asked ourselves the big questions: What do we stand for? Where are we heading together? What drives us?
Starting with Why
We began with inspiration from Simon Sinek’s TED Talk: organizations that start with why inspire more than those that focus only on what they do. It helped us see clearly:
- Vision = why we do something or the future we aspire to create
- Mission = how we do something or the purpose that drives us every day
- Strategy = what we actually do or the path that takes us there
To make this even more tangible, we like to imagine the GerBI bus with the destination to the vision. People see it approaching: some climb aboard right away, some hesitate, some may choose another route. Our mission is theengine driving the bus forward, while our strategy is the map guiding the journey. The bus represents a choice, a commitment, and a shared adventure, and the GerBI community is excited to get on board.
Small Steps, Big Conversations
Our first steps were intimate: a small online meeting with our coach Mathias Böni from Murakamy, just a handful of us (Lisa Schaefer, Janina Hanne, Stefanie Weidtkamp-Peters, Christian Feldhaus), trying to capture the essence of GerBI. We shared our thoughts and listened deeply: What makes GerBI unique? Why do we do what we do? How do we want to impact the world of bioimaging?
From these conversations, we structured our ideas around Why, How, and What, a framework that helped us organize diverse perspectives and find clarity together.
The Art of Words
Translating ideas into words proved surprisingly tricky. Every word mattered. We debated, refined, and rewrote until the statements didn’t just make sense, but they felt right.
Listening and Evolving
Next, we took our draft to the GerBI board and units during a retreat in Heidelberg. To be honest, the feedback was mixed, but insightful, leading us into a second round of refinement. Another small session with our coach helped us crystallize our thinking into statements that truly reflected our shared purpose. This time, the GerBI board and units feedback was much more positive (
).
GerBI Board and Units at work.
GerBI Vision & Mission Version 1.0
We then shared our vision and mission more broadly, first with the GerBI Advisory Board, and then with the wider community. The response from the Advisory Board was overwhelmingly positive. Within the community, the picture was more nuanced: many connected strongly with the mission, while the vision sparked more discussion. For some, it felt too broad, too open.
We take this feedback seriously, and we also see it as something valuable. A vision that is immediately clear in every detail might not be a vision at all, but a strategy in disguise. That was not our intention. We wanted to create space: space for GerBI to grow, for ideas to emerge, for contributions we cannot yet foresee. The mission grounds us in what we do. The vision invites us to imagine what could be.
At the same time, this is not set in stone. Quite the opposite, we genuinely welcome your thoughts. If you have ideas on how to sharpen the vision without taking away its openness, we would love to hear them. This is GerBI’s Version 1.0, and the next iteration, whether 1.1 or even 2.0, starts with your input.
And with that, we are proud to share where we have arrived today: GerBI’s Vision and Mission 1.0. This is a beginning. As new ideas emerge and our community evolves, so will these words.
Looking Ahead
With our vision and mission guiding us, we are ready to start our strategy process with our coach. The goal is to transform our shared purpose into tangible actions that make a real impact in bioimaging.
At GerBI, this journey reminded us that defining who we are is more than words, it’s a shared experience. It’s a conversation, a choice, a bus ride that we are taking together. And together, we are shaping the future we want to see.
Blogpost written by: Janina Hanne
