We wanted Nike to be the world's best sports and fitness company. Once you say that, you have a focus. You don't end up making wing tips or sponsoring the next Rolling Stones world tour.
I still remember the moment when the impact of the mission statement hit home. I was sitting in the audience at a business seminar. The speaker asked us to shut our eyes and point in the direction that we thought was true north. After a few moments, he asked us to open our eyes.
Fingers were pointing in every conceivable direction! Some of the participants were pointing to the front of the room, others to the back, and there were even a few who were pointing to the ceiling. There was no consistency whatsoever across the group.
This simple exercise showed me that when a group of people lack clarity, its members can interpret reality in many different ways. Of course, if the speaker had indicated true north before we closed our eyes, then our fingers would have all been aligned.
In the same way, a mission statement provides your organization with its true north. It aligns your people in the same direction and reminds them, in the simplest terms, of what you're trying to do and where you're trying to go.
Knowing—and making others aware of—your company's true north is particularly critical in this age of the information avalanche. The ceaseless barrage of noise on almost every conceivable topic can paralyze people's productivity on a daily basis. How many hours are lost clicking around web sites and/or responding to inconsequential emails? A solid strong mission allows you to quickly judge if your actions are aligned with your company's direction, neutral to it, or working against it. The mission prompts us to be effective rather than just busy.
Note
Sticky Notes:
Your company must have a great mission to attract great people.
A mission statement must be alive.
Your mission will attract superstars.
Simply stated, you cannot build a great company without a mission. Great companies have a purpose that puts their people's energy into focus and allows them to accomplish something bigger and more substantial than just getting a paycheck.
This sense of a mission is critical to your two main categories of employees:
Your superstars (10 percent). Superstars know they're valuable. They can apply their skills at your company or at your competitor's. A meaningful mission allows these "top ten percenters" to gain perspective and bragging rights around their career. They are able to see their role in a larger sense—something that lets them derive greater meaning from their performance and also acts as a retention tool.
Your "B" performers (70 percent). This group really needs that mission clarity to keep them focused. A mission statement makes the average employee just a little bit better. Knowing true north helps them synergize their actions. For example, consider an organization with a service-oriented mission and a ringing front desk phone. An employee who is aware of that mission will be more likely to pick up the phone. By contrast, if an organization has a mission statement focused on ingenuity, that same employee may let the same call roll to voice mail, and know that they are correct in doing so. The mission helps people to understand what is most important, and therefore allows average performers to align their behaviors with the organization's overarching intent.
You may have noticed that these two bullet points cover only 80 percent of your employees. Nothing—not even a mission statement—helps the bottom 20 percent. However, utilizing your mission statement lets you quickly identify those employees not in line with the mission of the organization. The good leader will utilize the mission statement to quickly remove those who are misaligned with the company's focus.
Today's market demands creativity. When our country's economy revolved around manufacturing, all a company needed was a healthy body that could perform repetitive tasks for 30 plus years. It was quite obvious whether the person was doing his or her job—they reached quota, or did not.
But modern organizations need people to think, to innovate, and to create. It's what makes the difference, but it's very difficult to strategically manage. You can't measure how much a person is actively engaged with your company, its products, and its services. A paycheck gets you a body and certain number of agreed-upon tasks; that's it. The stuff that gives an organization a competitive advantage—the creative thoughts—are volunteered. And unless you have a mission that will capture an employee's heart, you will not have access to the full wealth of treasures that someone can bring to your company. The mission statement should capture that person's heart, mind, imagination, and energies.
From a talent acquisition perspective, working from a mission transforms the hiring process from a series of steps to an expression of the mission. It's this expression that gives the MATCH process its energy, focus, and initial push of momentum.
As an executive recruiter, I have helped a number of companies make great hires without ever mentioning a mission. Clearly, there are very good companies that function without a clearly defined mission. But my point is that in terms of making effective hires, your odds of attracting, hiring, and retaining a great employee are enhanced if your company has taken the time to think out a meaningful and purposeful statement. Remember, the MATCH process is designed to increase your odds of hiring the right person every time, and having a clearly defined mission is a critical step in this process.
Great mission statements come in many forms. I have seen some comprised of 10 words, and others that span several pages. Some effective companies abandon the idea of the mission, and create a mantra—something shorter and more easily memorized. Other companies specify their core values within their mission by adding sections on values and ethics. There is no right or wrong way to construct a mission statement; all that matters is that the organization finds meaning and synergy around a single direction, just as with the exercise of pointing north as I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.
A great mission statement should express an organization's central ideology in three core areas:
Values. These are the core values that are part of your central ideology and that remain constant. In other words, these values would be the same even if you moved into another industry. Examples of core values include concepts such as: innovation, superior customer service, integrity, and environmental responsibility.
Purpose. This is the reason your company exists, but expressed in a somewhat more idealistic way. To find your core purpose, ask yourself how you earn a profit. Then ask yourself why, and work to get at the main benefit you provide. Example: "We sell toys." Why? "To make kids happy." What makes kids happy about playing with your toys? "We engage children's imagination." Engage? "We engage and develop children's imagination." Okay . . . now you're on the path to finding your core purpose.
Goals. Jim Collins calls these the "BHAGS—big, hairy, audacious goals." You may only have a 50 percent chance of achieving these—but by golly, you're on your way! These are goals like "become number 1 in our market," or "provide a PC for every child" or "be bigger than Microsoft."
These three categories provide the foundation you need for a solid mission.
Mission statements should be the concern—and work—of every one of your company's employees. That's the only way to guarantee buy-in and make it a "living" statement. Nothing disenfranchises employees quite like knowing that while only one or two people developed the mission, everyone is supposed to follow it.
If you don't have a mission statement, a good way to create one is to survey your personnel on the three categories previously mentioned. Hold focus groups to brainstorm and gain buy-in. Even better—get your customers involved. Their perspective, especially in the area of visionary goals, can be quite eye-opening.
Remember to maintain a sense of pride as you complete this task; after all, your mission statement should make you and your people proud of what they do and proud of the values they promote. But be careful that it's not so highfalutin that your people feel disconnected from it. The mission statement should not drain your people, nor should it be flat: it should energize!
In my opinion the best mission statement created by any organization is that of the renowned luxury hotel chain the Ritz-Carlton. To see the impact of their mission just visit any of their hotels. The mystique perforates the walls in ways that cannot be bought—all fostered by stories like the one a friend likes to tell.
This friend was staying in a Ritz hotel over several days, during which time he was doing a great deal of writing. The desk-chair in his room was a nonadjustable/one-size-fits-all model—comfortable, but not designed for marathon writing sessions. He buzzed down to the front desk and asked for a more ergonomic chair. The friendly staff quickly showed up with an adjustable chair, and soon he was writing in a much more comfortable manner.
He chalked up this experience to the Ritz-Carlton standard and soon forgot about it until a month later when he checked into a Ritz in a different part of the country. You can imagine how blown away he was when he walked into his room to find an adjustable chair at his desk. The staff had noted his preference and proactively accommodated his need for another writing session. Now that is service.
The Credo
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel is a place where the genuine care and comfort of our guests is our highest mission.
We pledge to provide the finest personal service and facilities for our guests who will always enjoy a warm, relaxed, yet refined ambience.
The Ritz-Carlton experience enlivens the senses, instills well-being, and fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.
At The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC, "We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen." This motto exemplifies the anticipatory service provided by all staff members.
Three Steps of Service
A warm and sincere greeting. Use the guest name, if and when possible.
Anticipation and compliance with guest needs.
Fond farewell. Give them a warm good-bye and use their names, if and when possible.
I hope that I have made it clear that the mission statement is a powerful tool in capturing the hearts and minds of both present and future employees. Use your mission statement as an initial step in the hiring process and you will be on the way to creating a rock solid foundation. With that mission statement at the helm of your efforts, proceed to the next step in the hiring process—assembling the hiring team.
On office refrigerators across the globe, you'll more than likely find a Dilbert cartoon. This extremely popular comic strip examines the absurd side of business. On the Dilbert web site (www.dilbert.com) there used to be a very funny mission statement generator.
After choosing a list of adverbs, verbs, adjectives, and nouns the generator gave you such great-sounding nonsense as:
"Our goal is to completely utilize business deliverables so that we may professionally revolutionize professional intellectual capital to exceed customer expectations."
"Our mission is to assertively create business meta-services."
"Our challenge is to collaboratively fashion prospective products so that we may efficiently coordinate business solutions."
"The customer can count on us to globally customize effective sources so that we may authoritatively facilitate prospective solutions to set us apart from the competition."
Despite the fact that I don't know what any of those statements mean, I've come across many similar-sounding ones in company brochures or neatly framed in the offices of CEOs during my travels.
Does your company have a mission statement? If so, is it "living"? That is, can your employees recite it? Does it affect your strategy and your day-to-day decisions? If not, then you may just have a collection of adverbs, verbs, adjectives, and nouns masquerading as a mission.