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First, Tear Up Your Mission Statement By Oren Harari, Ph.D (November 9, 2009) Get ready. If you take this article seriously, you could seriously transform your organization and your career for the better. And it all begins with your company's mission statement. Repeatedly over the past couple decades, with numerous organizations, I've found myself reading singularly unimpressive corporate mission statements. Most of them are overgeneralized pieces of bland prose. They hang meekly and unobtrusively on walls, influencing few, inspiring fewer. Sometimes I think there's a factory out there stamping out commodity, "me-too" mission statements that basically say that "we will be the best provider of widgets (or widget 'solutions') in the world, and we will delight our customers, and we will be the best place for employees who are our most important assets, blah blah blah." So I was particularly pleased to hear two individuals whom I respect lay out the same message I've been preaching to clients for several years. At the Milken Conference in April, high-profile pollster Frank Luntz called for an end to mission statements. Mission statements will not create, nor sustain, a compelling and differentiated brand, he noted. Luntz said the key for corporate success begins with the answer to two questions: One, what are you (and your firm) passionate about? Two, what will you (and your firm) do to drive a movement? In early June, I listened to Colin Powell as he addressed the International Dairy Deli Bakery Association. He argued that mission statements inspire neither soldiers nor business people to take the bold actions that will yield extraordinary results. "Mission" per se is important, but all too often, it becomes synonymous with an oh-so-carefully-crafted "mission statement". Powell suggested that the word purpose replace "mission" because the former is better able to reflect something that is deeper, more compelling, and more likely to inspire passion. Ah, there's that word again-"passion". Well, it just so happens that for years I've been independently arguing that a collective "passion for purpose" is a key driver of competitive success. Companies as diverse as Whole Foods Market (we will change the way America eats), IKEA (we will help lower- income people feel wealthy), Google (we will harness all the information of the world for everyone), ING Direct (we will help build wealth through savings), and Harley Davidson (we will help ordinary people excite their lives) have a distinct underlying purpose that their leaders and employees --and customers-- are genuinely passionate about. That passion for purpose is what drives these companies' strategic priorities, operational decisions, capital investments, performance metrics, hiring policies and cultures of innovation. Maybe these companies have formal mission statements too, but those statements are less important than the deeper purposes that are continually articulated and provide a collective sense of "who we are", "what we're trying to do together", "how we're trying to change conventional wisdom", and why. In my book Break From the Pack, I cited the above companies, among many others, to argue that an authentic purpose represents a "higher cause" that can be a first step to drive profitable growth. Here's what I wrote: A higher cause defines a noble and honorable purpose. A higher cause aims to leave a positive mark. It aims to change an entire market; in fact, it aims to change the world for the better. It's about somehow bettering the lot of human beings. (In contrast to typical mission statements which focus on the organization and its products) higher causes focus on customers: how they benefit and how their life or business will be elevated, all in a way that's fresh, unique, and perhaps most important --uplifting and virtuous. The most powerful higher causes lead people to see how the world will be a better place, and how humanity will benefit anew. Lest you think that I (or Luntz or Powell) are urging you to hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" --think of the opportunities that higher-cause purposes open up for inspired teamwork, turned-on customers, and intrigued investors. Think about the opportunities for unique branding, for strategies that drive a profitable difference, and for high-margin customer loyalty. So here's my point: Internally, A strong mission statement can galvanize employees to strive for similar sets of the same extraordinary goals. It also can attract the best and brightest to seek employment in your firm. Externally, a strong mission statement can be an excellent differentiator. It's a definition of your brand and unique value-add to the marketplace. This is particularly important if you are a small to medium sized concern. If your mission/brand is fundamentally the same as that of large competitors, they'll bury you with scale, volume, pricing, marketing, and so on. The key to success in today's economy is standing out with terrific price-value. A bold, solid, authentic, collectively-endorsed mission can help you do that, and that is something that a huge firm will find exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to imitate. Let me give you two quick examples. First, the internal side of the equation. One of my best MBA students -who has already been offered a great job at an international rendering firm (rendering companies collect and grind up dead animals to create fuels and lubricants for other firms) and had an interest in staying in the Bay Area, so he applied for a position at a local firm, the largest refuse firm in the Bay Area which has stayed medium sized for years. What a disappointment! He has a ton of knowledge, resources, networks, data, and energy to contribute. The company has remained stagnant for years, but he wanted to revitalize and help lead this company to a leadership position in profit and customer loyalty. And he could have. But when he interviewed, he quickly perceived that the company was simply that --a well-meaning staid hierarchical bureaucracy that wanted to squeeze him into a pre-established "job description" reporting to a mediocre manager. It paid "well" (industry standard of course, no more, no less), but he was still morose about the whole deal. I advised him (to his great relief) to simply ignore this company because it was a lousy fit with his skills, values and aspirations. There was no mission, no big purpose, no movement, certainly no passion. It was simply a "company", no different and no more special than any of its counterparts in the industry. He's ready to make a difference, and an authentic mission by this local company could have drawn him and others like him into the fold. Instead, they'll no doubt find an appropriate bland MBA bureaucrat to take on the job and fit and fall neatly into the culture --while at the same time perpetuating it for future potential hires. My MBA student would have wilted within 6 months in that environment. I predict that any creative professional will, and the firm will continue to find itself enmeshed in mediocrity and not understand why. If you run a small to medium sized company, this is a prescription for perpetual decline. You've got to attract and retain top talent if you have any fantasies about strong growth. On the external side, remember I said that a powerful mission can be an excellent brand differentiator and an excellent definer of the market you plan to dominate. Dale Larson, a clinical psychology professor at Santa Clara University, tells me about a medical researcher, a trained MD, he met in South America years ago. who he still remembers after many years. Larson is not a business professor, and ordinarily he has no interest in sorting through, or even remembering the names of different companies, but even after all this time years he hasn't forgotten the name of the company which employed this researcher: Shaman Pharmaceuticals, currently Shaman Biologicals. Dale met this researcher in a rain forest, which was not a coincidence. What impressed Dale was Shaman's mission, which is to create drugs from indigenous sources, tropical plants, and tropical forest species. And they were serious about it. How serious? For one thing, the researcher was dead passionate about explaining to Dale how the steady erosion of rain forests is eliminating many potential cures for diseases. (When your employees not only know your mission but are forceful advocates of it, you're on the right track). Second, he showed Dale a nasty wound he had incurred on his wrist the day before from the bite of a giant python. The wound had almost healed, which was remarkable. The reason, apparently, is that a plant with coagulant healing properties had been wrapped around the wound, quickly staunching the bleeding and stopping the pain. Dale may not use the term "brand equity" in his lectures, but he sure can identify and laud Shaman to people he converses with, like me. (And if he was an investor, he'd be even more pleased; check out Shaman's EPS, net income, and operating income over the past few years; all up, even as a lot of much larger pharmaceuticals are posting crappy returns). As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once said something very important that we would all be wise to ponder: "What makes morale good or bad is the sense of the future. Are we working on something important? Are we changing the world? Is that an opportunity to benefit financially? Those are the kinds of things that make a difference to people." Yes indeed. Instead of plunging right away into formulating strategic plans and mission statements, leaders would be well advised to first consider questions like: • What could we do profitably that would make a world of difference to our customers --including potential and future customers? • What mark-on-the-market can we leave that sets us apart from everyone else? • How can we significantly improve peoples' lives, and change the world for the better? • What is our legacy that we will be able to point to with pride? • How will we all commit to, execute, and monetize our answers? How do you start this process, you may ask? Well, it's not rocket science. It's about determination and sincerity. To summarize, missions that matter are about purpose, movement, higher cause, and passion. Let those elements form the lifeblood and soul of your organization. Begin by burning your current mission statement. Then get your key people together and rethink what's genuinely exciting and unique about your organization's business -- and what gets them, and you, passionate. Then identify what sort of movement you can create to change your industry --and the world. It's really not that hard to do. As I say, it requires sincerity and perseverance. And one more secret: it's fun too, once you get the ball rolling. It's a lot more fun to transform a market with fellow lunatics holding a common mission than simply "run a business" with fellow bureaucrats who mainly want to cover their rears with "decent" quarterlies. << prev - -   November 9, 2009   - - next >>