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Mission statement should communicate essence of business

TOO MANY ARE BLAND, FAIL TO EXPRESS CLEARLY WHAT COMPANY DOES

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.” – Chinese proverb

Communication is a critical ingredient of business success and we all probably think we’re pretty good at it. We can walk, talk, dictate, speak and even string together a few intelligible sentences. We chat with our troops, talk to our customers and vendors and share information with colleagues and shareholders. We hold meetings, BBQ’s and off-sites to talk about what’s going on. We’re all pretty good at communication ... aren’t we?

The inimitable Mr. Webster focuses on the transmission of thoughts and ideas, as if the means of communicating, or the act itself, constitutes communication. Yet, when you peruse a thesaurus for synonyms, you get words like “communion,” “connection,” “conversation” and “interchange,” as well as “transmission” and “advisement.” When you think of advisement and transmission, it’s more about talking than conversing, while with connection and conversation you expect a collaborative and two-way exchange.

In thinking about communicating great things, you’ve probably heard many times that your company should have a vision or mission statement.

Here are two examples of mission statements from well-known companies:

“Outstanding service and solutions through dedication and excellence.”

“Guided by relentless focus on our five imperatives, we will constantly strive to implement the critical initiatives required to achieve our vision. In doing this, we will deliver operational excellence in every corner of the company and meet or exceed our commitments to the many constituencies we serve. All of our long-term strategies and short-term actions will be molded by a set of core values that are shared by each and every associate.”

There’s nary a clue about the identity of those companies, is there? These are not very good examples of communication because they are either too “Mom and apple pie” or dance between pomposity and verbosity, as in the second example. They’re innocuous and impersonal – and, while they may sound righteous, stand for nothing.

Both vision and mission statements are generally derived in a conversation about the “purpose” of your company. Why are we here? What are we trying to accomplish? How will people remember us when we’re gone? Will they? It’s about you, digging deep to focus on why you’re coming to work each day and busting it from dawn until dusk.

In simple terms, a vision statement seeks to communicate the core values and purpose of an organization and looks to the future, to “what is possible” rather than “what is.” It’s more about inspiration than perspiration, while the mission statement says exactly what you do now. And like a good “elevator speech,” it can be recited in the time it takes you to get from the first to the 10th floor. It should use clear, muscular language to tell people succinctly who you are and what you do.

Now, take a look at these examples:

“We fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling, by providing to motorcyclists and to the general public an expanding line of motorcycles and branded products and services in selected market segments.”

“People love our clothes and trust our company. We will market the most appealing and widely worn casual clothing in the world. We will clothe the world.”

These make a lot more sense, don’t they? And, it’s not too hard to see the mission of Harley-Davidson or Levi Strauss in these words. Contrarily, did you guess correctly about Hughes Supply and Albertson’s in the earlier two examples?

As a good rule of thumb, stop revising your vision and mission statements when you can post them on the walls throughout the company and be as proud of them tomorrow as you are today. No one snickers when they read them; everyone in the company understands them, can recite them and embraces them as the embodiment of what they’re doing. Customers, vendors and shareholders clearly understand what you do and why you’re here and see that consistently throughout the organization.

Now, we’re communicating.

•••

Lary Kirchenbauer is the president of Exkalibur Advisors Inc., providing practical business strategies for family and other privately owned businesses in the middle market. He can be reached at 415-602-7870 or Lary@Exkalibur.com. His Web site is www.Exkalibur.com.

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