Ditch the Mission; Focus on the Vision

By Jane-Michele Clark

Quick –without looking it up, what’s the mission statement of the company that made the car you drive. What about your underwear? If you’re like most people, you don’t know the answer to either question. Chances are you may not even remember what brand of undies you put on this morning. And the mission statement certainly didn’t affect your purchase decision – or did it?

I’ve asked this same question to many audiences and classes over the past couple of years – and only one person was ever able to answer the question. It so happened that he had spent the last eight months on the steering committee his company put together to come up with a mission statement… and as an employee, got his undies at 30% retail prices.

His experience mirrored that of so many others that have gone through the process. They started off by asking – and guessing – at what kinds of things were supposed to be included in a mission statement.

They looked at other companies’ statements to get ideas – well, all that’s going to do is to help you make one that resembles all the other companies’ statements. It won’t help you get to the core values of what your company is all about – which is what a mission statement is supposed to so.

At some point in the process, something about employees often gets included. And all too often, all this does is to weaken the mission statement because, in any company, the primary goal should be to keep making customers happy and wanting your product. Being nice to your employees is important, yes, but (unfortunately) unless you are operating a sweatshop, whether you are nice or not will not affect the bottom line. Even then, the effect on sales is often limited.

People frequently get mixed up between objectives (the purpose, the ‘why’, etc.) and goals (the what, the “where you are going”). The same kind of confusion seems to happen with mission statements.

Once the first ideas are put to paper, a presentation gets made to some of the more senior people in the organization. The team is then sent away to make changes. Rarely do these statements get approved on the first go around; it is, after all, human nature to want to make changes when being asked to give an opinion on something.

Yes, the words "more senior” are correct; all too often, the job of figuring out the mission statement falls to more junior employees. Unless the firm does an exquisite job of keeping all levels of employees in the loop, it’s highly unusual for less senior staff to know what’s really important to the company and what direction it’s heading in. So how on earth can they be expected to create a mission statement that’s right for their company? That’s why is takes so many months to complete this task – why so many mission statements sound so similar.

So if that’s the case, why do companies bother?

Some years back, “mission statements” became the fashionable thing. Companies invested (wasted?) valuable resources in the process of capturing the elusive ‘Mission Statement’ on paper. It often didn’t seem to matter that the Canadian and US divisions of the same company had different mission statements. Or that the European or Asian head office had none at all. For a while, even the top business schools included the concept in their teachings. A lot of plaque makers made a lot of money creating the mission statement signs that hang in countless office around the world. But at the end of the day, who cares?

Unless the company chose to make each and every one of its decisions in accordance with the principles set out on the plaques, and used the phrases (including the nice ones about employees) as the guiding light for choosing what actions to take, then the plaque had no real meaning or value at all.

Luckily, the better-led companies are starting to realize that it is a lot more important to…

· Have clearly articulated long-range plans for the company – and a really clear point on the horizon as the target;

· Know the challenges likely to be encountered along the way,

· Have developed contingency plans for overcoming these hurdles,

· Ensure that all levels of employees know where the company is heading and understand why, and

· Motivate employees to pull together to achieve that common goal.

Yes, it’s important to have values so that your company arrives at its destination (goals) with an organization that fits its personality – and one that employees feel proud to be a part of – but the goals (and the understanding of “why) must come before the “how” (which is what most mission statements are about), if a company is to profitable and succeed.

Copyright @2005-2010 Jane-Michèle Clark. All rights reserved.


Jane-Michèle Clark is president of The Q Group ( www.theQgroup.com ), a strategic positioning and marketing communications firm that has worked with many blue chip companies over the past 30 years. In addition to being seasoned business strategist and marketing expert, Jane-Michèle also teaches MBA level marketing at the top-ranked Schulich School of Business York University). Jane-Michèle is also a corporate trainer and speaker and 9-time nominee for the RBC Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Jane-Michèle can be reached at jmc@theQgroup. or by calling 416-424-6644.


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