What do police academy instructors and STEM teachers have in common? The Mission Paradox

This article presents the Mission Paradox, shared by two public sector organizations in Israel: the police training system and the post-primary STEM education system. The Mission Paradox was identified in data analysis of two doctoral studies, which implemented a qualitative methodology. The study’s purpose was to analyze the perceptions of police training personnel and the perceptions of STEM teachers regarding the system in which they train or teach. The findings describe two poles of the Mission Paradox, which represent the meaning that teachers and instructors ascribe to their everyday training and teaching interactions at work: the formal mission at one extreme and the personal mission at the other. The paradox highlights the importance that organizations should ascribe to the existence of a personal mission. Naturally, employees should be enabled to realize their personal purpose as part of the realization of the organization’s formal purpose.