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Mission statement

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A mission statement is an organisation's vision translated into written form. It makes concrete (for all to see and read) a leader's view of the direction and purpose of an organisation. For many corporate leaders it is a vital part of their attempt to motivate employees and to set priorities.

The challenge is to distil this into a few short, pithy paragraphs that will be memorable to all those with an interest in the company. It is all too easy for a mission statement to become a bland idealistic blur, as in this (anonymous but real) example: “The mission of X is to maximise the company value by providing total quality services, empowering customer-oriented employees and growing through expansion, acquisition and new technology.” Such jargon is not likely to fire imaginations struggling to establish an entirely new market.

Many companies buttress their mission statements with a catchy slogan, something that acts as a quick and easy guide to what the company is really about. The best of these can be taken at several different levels and suit many purposes—for example, Harley-Davidson's “It's not the destination, it's the journey”; Nike's “Just do it”; and IKEA's “To create a better everyday life for the people we aim to serve”.

Three main benefits are attributed to mission statements:

• They help companies to focus their strategy by defining some boundaries within which to operate. Federal Express, for example, has said it is “dedicated to maximising financial returns by providing totally reliable, competitively superior, global air–ground transportation of high priority goods and documents that require rapid, time-certain delivery”. It is not, evidently, going to enter the business of bulk shipping oil products or semiconductors.

• They define the dimensions along which an organisation's performance is to be measured and judged. The most common candidate (not surprisingly) is profit. DuPont, for example, said that it considered itself successful “only if we return to our shareholders a long-term financial reward comparable to the better performing large industrial companies”. Corporations often acknowledge their responsibility to other stakeholders as well, mentioning their attitude to employees (“to treat them with respect, promote teamwork, and encourage personal freedom and growth”—Dow Chemical), or to customers (“to continually exceed our customers' increasing expectations”—Johnson Controls).

• They suggest standards for individual ethical behaviour. For example, Body Shop in Britain had what it called “Our reasons for being”. Among them were: “To passionately campaign for the protection of the environment, human and civil rights, and against animal testing within the cosmetics and toiletries industries.”

Some companies' statements have an almost missionary zeal. One of the most extraordinary was that once drawn up by Marks and Spencer, a British retailer. Its mission, it said, was:

The subversion of the class structure of 19th century England by making available to the working and lower-middle classes, upper-class quality at prices the working and lower-middle classes could well afford.

Johnson & Johnson, one of the most admired companies in America, created what it called the J&J Credo. Written in 1943 by Robert W. Johnson Jr when he succeeded his father as chairman of what was then still essentially a family firm, the J&J Credo set priorities by stating that J&J's first responsibility was to its customers. Its second responsibility was to its employees, its third to its management, its fourth to the community, and its fifth and last to its shareholders.

Steve Jobs's mission statement for Apple in 1980 was: “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”

Mission statements got a big boost (and the name) from the wide publicity given to that of the NASA moon mission articulated by President Kennedy in 1961: “Achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” That mission was achieved, just in time, in July 1969.

Further reading

Abrahams, J., “101 Mission Statements from Top Companies”, Ten Speed Press, 2007

Collins, J. and Porras, J., “Organisational Vision and Visionary Organisations”, California Management Review, 1997

More management ideas

This article is adapted from “The Economist Guide to Management Ideas and Gurus”, by Tim Hindle (Profile Books; 322 pages; £20). The guide has the low-down on over 100 of the most influential business-management ideas and more than 50 of the world's most influential management thinkers. To buy this book, please visit our online shop.