Many times, I come up with blogging topics while on my daily walk. I usually get into a rhythm, and then my mind "zones out". About an hour later, I find myself walking up my driveway, ideas at the ready..
Yesterday, I was thinking about how ineffective Mission Statements are at "rallying the troops." I came to the conclusion that if you could boil down what your company really does, into a few words, that it would be far more effective in providing direction to every company employee.
I once worked for a company that printed safety signs, labels and tags. We had a long mission statement (I know, I was one of the people who crafted it.) We talked about value creation and shareholders and leading our markets - all the stuff that no one (except an investor or Board Member) could easily relate to.
What my company really did, was; Keep employees safe. Within this context, everyone's job became clear. R&D looked at how to make our signs withstand harsh manufacturing environments, to be seen in low (or no) light. They worried about font sizes, color brightness, the effectiveness of graphics. None of these activities would ever have been spawned by our esoteric Mission statement.
Shipping departments understood the importance of getting the orders out the same day - after all someone's well being might depend upon it.
Manufacturing looked for ways to cost effectively make a unit of one - to satisfy any safety requirement - to customize any safety message (not just the ones we could come up with).
Marketing understood that "Keeping employees safe", meant facility access and emergency egress as well. They understood that safety extended from signs to locks and lockouts. It meant visually marking all major piping in plants. It also meant labelling and handling of hazardous materials, safety signs in multiple languages...and on and on.....
It was going to be a really good blog.
Before I could get started writing, I discovered this excellent keynote presentation from Guy Kawasaki who discusses the exact points I was going to make. Except of course, he did it first (and far more effectively than I could).
Warning: This video is about an hour long. Guy discusses mission statements and what he calls "Mantra" in the first ten minutes or so.
It's worth every minute.
