What is your mission?
It’s all very well having a mission statement, but have you got a business to justify it?
Mission statements are one of those things that every modern business is supposed to have, but very few businesses actually need. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a mission statement as “a summary of the aims and values of an organisation”.
Having a single focus for you business, and making sure that your employees and customers know what the business does, is undoubtedly crucial. But writing a mission statement can take an awfully long time, and it can be a rather fruitless exercise.
If, for example, you asked a person in the street what Google did or was, they might say: “It’s a big search engine that finds stuff online.” But, says Google, it exists to “organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Ask your average passer-by the point of Microsoft and they might say: “To create standardised software packages that make it easier for more people to use a computer.” Or, if you are a conspiracy theorist: “To take over the world.” But now, Microsoft apparently exists to “exists to “help people and businesses throughout the world realise their full potential”.
Another conspiracy theorist favourite for world domination, Tesco’s raison d’etre is “to create value for customers to earn their lifetime loyalty.” I doubt any punter pauses to ponder whether lifetime loyalty is on the (club) cards while chucking pints of milk into the trolley on Friday night. But a mission statement that says, “We are a big supermarket that sells you things” doesn’t sound as appealing.
In reality, there is only one business mission statement. And that is: “Make as much money as you can, while you can.” Like it or not, a business has to make money. Ideally, lots of profit, but definitely enough revenue to cover its overheads. Otherwise, you don’t have a business. Once you have this mission in mind, and are honest about it with employees and customers, things come sharply into focus.
Walt Disney’s mission was to “make people happy.” To make me happy Disney should have closed down all its shops so that my daughter would stop pestering me for more pastel coloured polyester princess dresses. Consumer happiness, realising your full potential, having universally accessible information to hand and swearing a lifetime allegiance to a supermarket are all convenient by products of the main mission of those businesses, which is to make money.
It seems that everybody and everything can now have a mission statement. Schools, councils and even individuals have them (although, as an employer, if I see a CV with a personal mission statement at the top I really do have to force myself to read on).
You can pay consultants to create a mission statement for your business, or a life coach to help you write your own. This appears pointless. If you can’t write your own mission statement for yourself or your business then your mission should really be to learn some independent thinking skills and get a grip.
I often meet people setting up a business, who have worked on their marketing, website, logo and mission statement. Ask them about overheads in year one and they’ll give you a ‘rough idea’. Ask them how much money they’ll make in year one and they’ll give you a figure based on about a million people visiting their website in month three. In short, you can have a brilliant business with out having a mission statement, but there’s not much point in having a brilliant mission statement if you have no business.
William Montgomery is a performance consultant with first class credentials. A former naval officer and business executive, he now heads up TEN, where he is retained by some of the world’s leading organisations in the fields of sport, media and business. He has earned an enviable reputation as a powerful catalyst for performance, helping release potential to maximise profit through the creation of a success culture for start-up entrepreneurs to FTSE 100 companies. He has chaired and addressed conferences across the UK in the private and public sectors. William’s messages are practical, and presented with electrifying effect. He shakes up and inspires his audiences, showing them what lies within their grasp.
For more information visit askten.co.uk, email mail@askten.co.uk or call +44 117 325 2010. For an interview with William Montgomery please contact Melissa Neill at HYPR on +44 845 347 0027 or email her at melissa@hy-pr.co.uk.
