Achieved Strategies

A mission, which succinctly summarizes your organization’s purpose in an inspirational way, is something that all successful companies have in common.  But, how do you develop an effective mission statement?  Once you have a statement, then what?

When I facilitate the development of a mission statement, I work with a subset of leadership and employees to answer the following key questions:

1. Why does this organization exist?
2. What key services/activities does it provide?
3. Who are its customers?
4. What are the results it hopes to achieve by delivering its product or service?

After brainstorming and  ideas spread out over easel charts all over the room, it’s a good time for a break after all the answers to these questions are captured.  At break, I like to pull out inspirational and specific words that will make for a compelling statement.

Then, we draft a statement, and refine it to meet the following criteria:

• It’s inspirational to us and our customers
• It’s understandable, specific, and to the point
• It summarizes what we exist to do.

With a statement in hand, we can do a quick survey with additional employees to ensure it also meets the criteria stated above.  As well, it’s a good place to assess and lay the foundation for how we keep aligned to the mission in our daily business.

A few examples of some good mission statements:

*from Collins, J.C. & Porras, J.I. (1997).  Built to Last:  Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. New York, NY:  HarperBusiness.