The Importance Of Having A Mission Statement

Posted: March 1st, 2009 | Author: miconian | Filed under: Work | Comments

I first read about mission statements in The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People (as far as I know, maybe that’s where the idea originated). Simply put, a mission statement is a company’s over-arching goal. Here’s what most people, if forced to say, would tell you the mission statement of their own companies are:

To make as much money as possible.

But this is a bad mission statement. Not because making money is bad, but because focusing only on money undermines the basic idea behind a mission statement, which is:

To provide one simple, singular directive that can serve as a guidepost to solve any problems that emerge.

There are many ways to make money, and there are many arguments as to whether any given decision is really going to lead the company toward the largest possible profit. It’s understood that nearly everyone in business wants to maximize profit. Therefore, nearly all arguments about the direction of a business take place inside of this basic agreement. Something farther reaching is needed. Take Microsoft’s mission statement from the 1990s:

To put a computer on ever desktop, and in every home.

Notice the lack of mention of money or software in the mission statement of the most commercially successful software company in history.

Statements like this provide a friendly guidepost for making major decisions. Suppose that a senior VP of business development at Microsoft suggested that Microsoft open a restaurant. A team wows Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer with a presentation on how they’ve used MS tools to determine the perfect location, menu, and chef. Profitability is virtually guaranteed. The presentation ends. After a minute of silence, Ballmer remarks:

“This all may be true. But tell me this. How is opening a restaurant going to help us put a computer on every desktop, and in every home?”

The world is a complicated place, things are increasingly interconnected, and there may indeed be some way to answer that question. Suppose the exec argues that MS will get publicity from the restaurant, which will ultimately drive software sales. Ballmer answers:

“Maybe so. But even Microsoft has limited resources. Are you really saying that, given our mission statement, this is the best possible use of our resources?”

Hard times make mission statements both more important, and more difficult to follow. If not guarded carefully, a statement like:

To put a computer on ever desktop, and in every home.

…can easily become:

To put a computer on ever desktop, and in every home. Unless we just had a rough quarter. In which case, fuck, I don’t know, maybe we should open a restaurant.

image by janetmck

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