Pimp Your Work - Improving Your Work Day Efficiency

All Mission Statements are the Same

by Scot Herrick on October 6th, 2006

I love the effort that companies (and writers) put into developing a Mission Statement. They laud the buy-in by employees and exalt the effort by managers and employees to define what they do.

Maybe it’s a team-building exercise. Maybe it should be. It would be better to call the process team-building because all Mission Statements are the same.

Really.

When you get right down to it, Mission Statements have to be about what you do and your commitment to do what you do in a particular way.

If the particular Mission Statement doesn’t match up with the what the corporation needs, of course, you’d be in a lot of trouble. That’s why all Mission Statements are the same.

Here is how they read:

1. “Delight our customers through (insert current work here)
2. Focusing on nimble execution and exquisite quality
3. While improving our employee’s skills and opportunities in the Company
4. And delivering financial value to (Name of organization or company)”

Change numbers one and four to the appropriate description and you have a mission statement.

Let’s see if the theory holds. Put your Company or Departmental Mission Statement (not your tag line…but Mission Statement) into the comments for this post and see if they match up with the statements 1-4 above.

Please leave out the company names, of course. This is testing the theory of Mission Statements.

Scot

Share This

Related Stories

• Mission Statements — Four Pitfalls
• Mission Statements — Five characteristics of good ones
• Mission Statements are All the Same
• Mission Statements Need Mantras
• Mission Statements: Five Better Questions

POSTED IN: Cube life