Do Mission Statements Matter?

Mission Statements. Most companies have them. Some have very long elaborate mission statements that sound really good. Problem is, as you probably already know, most employees either don't know about them, cannot remember them, or they don't care about them, i.e. it has no effect on their daily work lives.

If you study some of the most successful and well branded companies in the world one thing stands out about their mission statements. They are usually very short and obvious. Disney case in point: "To make people happy". Disney employees know their mission statement. They live it.

So let's say you are working at an accounting firm. Does your firm have a mission statement? Probably. Do you know it? Maybe? Does it matter to you? Possibly, but most likely not.

Here is where Gen Y comes in. These young kids have big dreams. They do want to be part of something special. They, however, are a little less trusting of big company initiatives. The mission statement was probably formed way before they arrived. Why should it matter to them? They had no part in creating it. You might say, well they chose to come work at this company so they should have been attracted to our ideas, mission, values, etc. Hmmmm, maybe, maybe not. Did you, during the recruiting process, have in-depth talks about their values and goals and look for an alignment?

The chances are you probably did not. Now what do you do?

You do it now, but at a different level. You do it at a more personal level. Get your small team together and discuss these issues. What are our convictions? What do we care about? You will need to get individual input, you will need to get individual buy-in from the team memebers. This is why I suggest you do it at a more micro-level. GET THEM TO CO-CREATE IT. GET THEM TO DOCUMENT IT. GET THEM TO BE CREATIVE IN HOW THEY CAN SHARE IT, AND REMEMBER IT.

Of course ... make sure the team mission statements and convictions you uncover are in line with the company's.

If you can do all this, your smaller team will co-own what THEY have created, and now you are getting somewhere!