Mission: How Leaders Create The Greatest Version Of What You Can
Be
A statement of mission is one of the most powerful things you
can do, whether you are running a major corporation or a small
team. It expresses the purpose for the organisation's existence,
its raison d'etre, and becomes the rallying point around which
everyone can unite.
Often managers create mission statements because they think they
should and then leave them gathering dust on the shelf. But this
is to mistake the real power and purpose of mission statements.
If put together with real understanding of what a group of
people can achieve, they can act like irresistible magnets
drawing everyone in the same direction.
It is one of the core roles of leaders, whether at the top of
the organisation, or anywhere within it, to confirm, verify,
communicate, and live the mission statement. Here are some of
the ways that can happen.
* Write your Mission Statement down. Although it can be used for
promotion purposes, it should never be seen purely as a
promotional tool but as the group expressing the best version of
itself. * Think first about how the group benefits others. These
could be those who work for it, those who are its customers, the
wider community, or future generations. * Think in terms of
being sent on a mission by a higher power. If you see the
organisation as fulfilling a role at some profound level, beyond
perhaps your immediate understanding, then the Mission Statement
becomes easier to write. Your mission will have far more power
if you get a sense of the business's unique and special purpose,
rather than simply re-stating its aim to make money for its
stakeholders. * Tie in your Mission Statement with your goals,
aims, and visions. * Use language that everyone can understand.
The best Mission Statements are simple monosyllabic one-liners.
* Don't worry about getting it right first time. Just like our
own understanding of our purpose on this earth, understanding
the mission of your organisation is a work in progress. So keep
at it and revise it as you go.
Of course, it is easier to state these high-sounding aims,
another to find the right words. So, take a look at some famous
mission statements used at various times by well-known companies.
1. Reebok: "Our purpose is to ignite a passion for winning, to
do the extraordinary, and to capture the customer's heart and
mind." 2. Walt Disney: "To make people happy." 3. Wal-Mart: "To
give ordinary folk the chance to buy the same things as rich
people." 4. The Body Shop: "Tirelessly work to narrow the gap
between principle and practice whilst making fun, passion and
care part of our daily lives." 5. Marks and Spencer: "Our
mission is to make aspirational quality accessible to all." 6.
Sony: "Our mission is to experience the joy of advancing and
applying technology for the benefit of the public." 7. Coca
Cola: "The basic proposition of our business is simple, solid
and timeless. When we bring refreshment, value, joy and fun to
our stakeholders, then we successfully nurture and protect our
brands." 8. 3M: "To solve unsolved problems innovatively." 9.
Glaxo: "We are an integrated, research-based group of companies
whose corporate purpose is to create, discover, develop,
manufacture, and market safe effective medicines throughout the
world."
And here to top these statements is the mission statement of
Ringland Bros circus, penned in 1899: "To be good, mankind must
be happy. To wreathe the faces of humanity in smiles for a time,
to loosen the chains that hold man captive to his duties and
return him to them better fitted for his obligations, is the
mission of amusement. Amusement unfetters the mind from its
environs and changes the dreary monotony of the factory's
spindles to the joyous song of the meadowlark. It softens the
wrinkles of sorrow, makes smiles of frowns. This is the mission
of amusement - and the circus with its innocent sights of joy
for the children and its power to make all men and women
children again for at least one day, comes the nearest of any
form of amusement to fulfilling this mission."
We can of course write our own mission statements. Doing our own
statements makes writing them for our organizations much easier.
Here is the mission statement of a working mother: "I will seek
to fulfil my duties towards both my work and my family since
both are important to me. My work is the place where I aim to
achieve service towards others, the expression of my technical
knowledge and the building of harmonious and satisfying
relationships. My home is the place where I aim to find
happiness, peace, contentment and joy. Despite all the
challenges, I aim to balance work and home and the genuine needs
of those who look to me to help them."
Let the last word be with Paul Beeston of mission-coach.co.uk:
"To live your mission is the most generous thing you can do.
Your mission is always going to make a major contribution to
your life, the lives of others and the planet. Humankind and the
planet needs you to live your mission. Your mission is part of
the tapestry of life and without it there are stitches missing.
Is there anything more important for you to do?"