Blog of Jeff

I’ve been mulling over mission statements for a while because I recently found myself back in one of those long meetings where managers and consultants try to hammer out the heart and soul of an organization in 25 words or less. It’s the traditional job of creating a unique identity and framing the outer parameters of an organization’s strategy. Yet more and more, I am thinking it is really a waste of time. Corporations can be sued for violating shareholder rights if they turn down a profitable buy-out offer yet no corporation has a mission of being sold. It comes back to the idea that all corporations exist to increase shareholder value no matter what the plaque on the wall says.

Non-profits tend to agonize over mission statements even more but then managers play games spinning the descriptions of their favorite programs to fit the mission. In some cases, they violate the mission on purpose for the greater good. A classic example is the big government contract that has 75% of its money tied to something directly in the mission but requires 25% of the work be something completely outside an organization’s mission. They’re still going to take that contract 10 times out of 10 if it’s a big pot of money.

Even from a strategy viewpoint, mission statements may be more trouble than they are worth. In an age where everyone is aiming to be flexible, adaptable and nimble, does it make sense to chain your strategy to a single sentence that is supposed to last for years and years?

My new unified theory of mission statements is that every organization on the planet has one of two mission statements. You’re either an organization dedicated to selling stuff or an organization dedicated to helping people. Beyond that, there are strategic decisions. What stuff do you sell, to whom, where, when and for how much? Which people do you help, where, when, how? Those strategic decisions can be changed when necessary (or simply advantageous). Whether you are a giant government agency, a small mom and pop store, a corporation, a church or any other type agency, one of those two mission statements will apply to you.

I still believe in the conventional wisdom that you don’t want to be changing strategy on an everyday basis because it takes time for strategic changes to be implemented and measured. But I think a lot of agencies could save a lot of time and money if they just accepted that mission statements aren’t that important because, at the end of the day, they all come down to selling stuff or helping people.

My business plan still has some holes, one of which is my mission statement. I researched this a bit, pulled out some old MBA books and looked at some that are considered “best practices” style mission statements. I also looked at the Dilbert mission creator (http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi) just to make sure I wasn’t heading into that category.

At the end of my careful analysis, I basically discovered that there is little consensus on what a good mission statement should be. Some companies advocate hard and fast goals, even possibly including sales or profit targets. Others preach broad encompassing principles that can guide a range of decisions by the staff. The one thing that they all agree upon is that it should be memorable and honest.

I also studied the websites of several authors and other artists and found that they seem to be lacking in mission statements. For that matter, there also seems to be a lack of sample business plans for artists/authors despite a gazillion samples in other industries. I know there are a lot of authors that are extremely marketing/business savy, so it may just be they don’t publicize their plans.

But back to the problem at hand. I need a mission statement that doesn’t make me vomit, something succint that clearly articulates what I do and how I do it. I am not going to choose a mission statement that ties me to specific sales or revenues targets, because I think the business plan addresses those in plenty of detail. Plus, those are boring and ostentatious to most readers. (OK, ostentatious was my bonus writer’s word of the day. I’m not really sure what it means, but I think it means boastful or self-important. (Alright, I decided to be professional and look it up. http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/ostentatious. My definition was close enough …))

Enough of these ramblings. What will my mission statement be? How shall I fill this gaping hole in my business plan? I am thinking that my mission might be ”creating quality writings for audiences to read.” Now, here is where my journalism experience comes into the picture. I instantly want to chop off the prepositional phrases, leaving the first three words. And the MBA side of me thinks quality is meaningless unless it has a clear definition.

My mission is to create writings that captivate readers. I think this is the winner. I can measure how many writings I create. I can measure the captivation of readers through a variety of measures, such as sales and numbers of clients.