Having a mission statement is important for any organization, business or a non-profit organization. It briefly identifies the role and major goals of the organization, and acts as a compass and inspiration to day-to-day activities, visions, and strategies, as well as to decisions. Making a memorable mission statement takes time, creativity and a certain amount of brainstorming and rewrites. The end result should be convincing to stakeholders and keep the venture moving forward with purpose.
Why Have a Mission Statement?
It became evident that every organization requires a simple means of effectively defining what that organization aims to be, its purpose that is. A mission statement does exactly that in a few more words, but to the point. It informs the organization employees, clients or partners of the existing goals and beliefs of the organization. This serves many functions:
It is enormously beneficial in that it manages to keep all employees focused and committed towards the achievement of organisational goals and objectives that are encapsulated in organizational core values. This brings focus to bear on the same general ground, thus applying unification of purpose towards the same end.
It publicly announces the strategic direction or vision to enable the partners, investors and customers decide if they are fulfilled. This draws together like-minded people.
It shows that the organization is different from others by stressing on values, principles, and concerns. This differentiation creates community and solidity of brand characteristics.
A lack of mission statements therefore poses a major danger in that tasks within an organizations may get misaligned. From the above picture, what we get is that employees follow different timelines of a project as per their understanding of priorities. The supporters outside the company do not have much idea about why that company is unique or should be supported. That alters completely when you have a well thought out mission statement.
Elements of a good and well-developed mission statement
There are not universal templates for forming good mission statements, as each organization is unique in its way. However, compelling mission statements often include:
- Purpose or reason for existence: Thischied in a few words why supporting its activity, the work of the organization has a purpose and is not in vain. What social or psychological issues, concerns, or and socio-cultural or psychosocial needs or values does it intend to serve? The participants have identified that this is one of their core motivators which should encourage them to always strive.
- Primary goals and objectives: Main thrusts which require most of the attention and effort and are some times the most important in relation to the organization strategy or goal. These can be seen to depict major milestones towards the realization of the articulated mission.
- Ideologies and values: What is the philosophy or ethical system regarding the work and dealings? Constitutes the basic framework that guides strategies, policies, processes and procedures. These form the personality.
- Scope of work/service: The target implying the served subjects, whether people, communities, other subjects, etc. Many of these proposals also indicate the status and circumstances of services/products that were provided.
- Geographic scope: For many big or complicated organizations, defining the areas affected by the works done. This qualifies the comprehensiveness of operations.
The Crafting Process
But given the fact that there many areas to cover and the need to ensure that all of them flow seamlessly into a brief statement, refining a mission statement needs time. It should be a deliberate, thoughtful writing process including:
- Discuss the why and the what of work
In other words, why was such organization formed in the first place? The meaningful change invariably aimed at should be visualized. - Redundancy must be made of general and specialised skills
Decide which skills and properties may help turn success into growth. What could attract support? - Define initial specific targets
Develop the idea as to which facets point to the specific achievements of moving closer to the objective. - Describe major principles of values and ethics
What values and beliefs we should introduce to the company to create a healthy internal environment and effective external communication? - Spare some time to explain the audience to attract and the service to offer
Who benefits from the work? Which offerings or programs are relevant to purpose and profitable? - Summarise all parts into effective drafts
Pull them all together into concise statements that convey mission and goals Clearly. - Approach an evaluation of multiple revisions critically
Apply many iterations of asking difficult questions to check for vagueness or doubt to many versions.
It requires a measure of introspection, writing talent, and ruthlessness, to distil the precise words, the right choice of phrase and noble sentence structure that is best suited to giving an accurate and engaging picture of this organisation. With work though, the end product becomes such a great commodity within and outside the organization. They explained that it influences routine choices and fosters sustained improvement.
To understand the practical way in which this mission statement is to be put into practice a brief overview of the nature and application of mission statements in organizations is required.
However, much like the anecdote comparing building a ship and calling it ‘done,’ once a mission statement embraces a new focus it’s vital to work to make sure that new focus becomes institutionalized. It should flow into organizational processes and practices through:
- Awares – Display the statement at conspicuous places such as on the office notice board, over the office intranet, company publications and more. Writing it in the email signature line of organizational emails is also effective. Read it during meetings, speeches and programs. Use it to the ‘ills’ of internal and external communication strategies.
- Simulation – Every day leadership, plans, and decisions should be framed in reference to the mission. Demonstrate how plans contribute directly to the components of the guiding purpose and vision statement.
- Methods – Established courses of action and objectives for departments and employees which directly correlate with the firm’s mission statement. This creates responsibility IF…
- Recruitment and Selection – Cite the statement during formation of job descriptions and while conducting interviews in order to make new employees embrace the mentioned values and focus on prioritized goals.
- Evaluation – Think about how current and planned programs, options and plans enhance or do not enhance mission statements. Invest in minimizing systemic wastage, inefficient performances that distract from the main goal.
The mission forms the center of all activities in an organization in case it has been integrated genuinely within the company’s fabric. It maintains orderly mix of the different employees and operations with reference to equal common goals and objectives. For external investors, clients, partners, and other stakeholder, it means a sense of integrity to purpose. But more than just foc’s and cliché wall posters, a properly written and thoroughly practiced mission statement is indeed c*parable.
