We’ve all seen organizational or personal mission statements. In some cases, they are front and center. In other cases, they are hidden, and it’s clear that they are little more than an afterthought.
Through their clarity, direction, and guidance, mission statements can play a role in your company’s (or your personal) success. Yet poorly written mission statements can have an adverse effect.
Review your mission statement and see whether you’re making these mistakes.
1. The mission statement is confused for a vision statement (or vice versa).
It’s important to recognize the difference between a mission statement is different and a vision statement. According to an article at Business News Daily, mission statements answers the question, Why does my business exist?
Vision statements, meanwhile, answer the question, Where do I see my business going? It is supposed to inspire and give direction to employees.
2. The mission statement is too verbose.
We’ve all seen mission statements that resemble legal documents, with lots of clauses, phrases, and pretentious words that have you scrambling for the dictionary or thesaurus. Such statements might also send you looking for a red pen, because the statement is incorrectly punctuated.
Something similar to the following exaggeration:
The mission of SuperGlobal Conglomerate, Inc. (a proud subsidiary of Mega-Multinational, Inc.) is to endeavor mightily to provide it’s ridiculously awesome shareholder return by offering best-in-class service for its products through cost-effective methodologies designed to reduce costs.
This exaggeration seems to say that SuperGlobal is so focused on serving its shareholders by sending all service calls overseas, where things are cheaper.
How about something more simple, like “We offer best-in-class products and the services to back them up.”?
Business consultant Laurie Beth Jones, author of such books as Jesus CEO and The Goal, says that a mission statement should be simple enough to be easily remembered by a 12-year-old. Does your mission statement meet that criteria?
3. The mission statement has buzzwords that are cliché.
Every company wants to leverage its high-energy, emotionally intelligent, customer-focused, environmentally friendly efforts into a value-added, laser-like focus to be a game changer in the industry. Moreover, every company wants to think outside the box, using a dynamic, deep dive methodology to really understand how to best meets customer needs in a synergistic fashion.
Avoid buzzwords. Use simple words. Avis, for example, has a mission statement: “We try harder.”
4. The mission statement is put away; people cannot see it.
As mentioned earlier, some companies place their mission statements away. This can be for any number of reasons. For example, management doesn’t care for the mission statement. Or, perhaps the mission statement itself must be rewritten.
But for a mission statement is to work—really work—it must be posted where people can easily see it.
Finally, given the mistakes that can be made with mission statements, are there examples of some good ones? One such web site that lists nonprofit organization mission statements.
