Mystic Monk Case Analysis

Father Prior Daniel Mary expressed in the Mystic Monk Coffee case that he had come to the understanding that his monastery in Wyoming was in need of an expansion. He identified the future direction for the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming when he introduced his vision for the monastery. Father Prior stated his vision for the monastery was to transform the small brotherhood of 13 monks living in a small home into a 500-acre monastery that would include accommodations for 30 monks, a Gothic church, a convent for Carmelite nuns, a retreat center for lay visitors, and a hermitage.

The vision for the Mystic Monk Coffee element wasn’t clearly defined in the case, but one might consider it to be a means of support from the outside world that could possibly provide the necessary financial resources to purchase the desired land for their future expansion effort. In a way, the coffee element was a successive vision stemming from Father Prior’s vision for the monastery.

The mission of the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming was to create a place of prayer, worship, and solitude in the Rockies for men who wish to dedicate their lives toward carrying out the vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty and the sacrifices associated with living a cloistered religious life.

Definite objectives and performance targets don’t appear to be fully disclosed by Father Prior Daniel Mary for how the monastery would go about achieving his vision. Father Prior does express his monastery’s financial needs in regards to his vision to expand and create a new Mount Carmel with potential solutions. He stated that his vision could be carried out through donations and the profits generated by the monastery’s Mystic Monk Coffee operations. Unfortunately, Father Prior did not have any quantifiable objectives or performance targets for achieving his vision. He additionally lacked any achievement deadlines that would provide the monastery with the measures to fulfill the vision in hand.

Father Prior’s strategy for achieving his vision was not a thoroughly communicated concept. The case touched on a few broad ideas in which Father Prior had stated which could be put together to formulate a strategy. Father Prior understood that his cloistered monastic environment presented very unique challenges to operating a business enterprise such as MMC, but it also provided opportunities that were not available to secular, nonreligious businesses. He committed his efforts toward developing an execution plan that would enable his coffee business to minimize the effect of its cloistered monastic constraints by conducting business online through those who worked outside the cloistered part of the monastery. Additionally he sought after ways to maximize the potential of monastic opportunities which collectively would allow him to be successful in achieving his vision of buying the Irma Lake Ranch. He believed that with the combination of donations

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