If you were to read the mission statements of all the organizations in your industry, yours would be different than your competition. Peter Drucker famously advised that your mission statement should be short and compelling enough to fit on a t-shirt your staff would actually wear. You can download it here for free! The mission of University of Phoenix is to educate working adults to develop the knowledge and skills that will enable them to achieve their professional goals, improve the productivity of their organizations, and provide leadership and service to their communities.
University of Phoenix. As a leader, you control whether the mission statement is a guide to your direction or if it becomes trite. The most important part of your mission statement is keeping your organization on its path, unwavering from why you exist. Your Website. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. This can be displayed in how they interact with customers , the organizations and communities they support and even the way they develop their products.
It summarizes what your company does for customers, employees, and owners, and typically includes general descriptions of your organization, its core function, and its goals. Depending on the focus of your business, your mission statement may be even broader.
Explaining not just how you serve your customers and employees, but your community and the world at large. A vision statement is exactly what it sounds like.
Your mission statement would then be the key results, or steps, you need to take to get there. Again, this is typically an aspirational representation of the purpose of your business. They both reflect the purpose and goals of your business, but serve completely different purposes. Your mission statement should serve as the roadmap to achieve your vision statement. And your vision statement should serve as the guiding light for the aspirations of your business.
These can be completely separate written statements for your business, or they can be combined into a more comprehensive mission statement.
Having all three does allow you to utilize them for different business purposes, so it may be worth developing variations over time. I love it when a mission statement defines a business so well that it feels like strategy—which does happen—and I hate it when a mission statement is generic, stale, and completely useless. The vast majority of the mission statements are just meaningless hype that could be used to describe any business.
There are actually sites that poke fun at how most mission statements use vague, high-sounding phrases to say nothing. You should write a mission statement if you want to add clarity to your business goals and you want to get your employees, investors, and customers to understand what your organization is all about.
So how do you make a useful mission statement? Imagine a real person making the actual decision to buy what you sell. Why do they want it? How did they find your business?
What does it do for them? The more concrete the story, the better. Start your mission statement with the good you do. Use your market-defining story to suss out whatever it is that makes your business special for your target customer. Offering trustworthy auto repair, for example, narrowed down to your specialty in your neighborhood with your unique policies, is doing something good.
So is offering excellent slow food in your neighborhood, with emphasis on organic and local, at a price premium. This is a part of your mission statement, and a pretty crucial part at that—write it down.
If your business is good for the world, incorporate that here too. But claims about being good for the world need to be meaningful, and distinguishable from all the other businesses. That one obviously passes the test of defining the company with flying colors. Nobody could mistake that mission for generic hype.
Ikea, on the other hand, starts its mission statement with something that could be any company anywhere. And note, in this mission statement, how Sweetgreen incorporates a world vision into a product-oriented mission statement:. We source local and organic ingredients from farmers we know and partners we trust, supporting our communities, and creating meaningful relationships with those around us. We exist to create experiences where passion and purpose come together. Keeping employees is better for the bottom line than turnover.
Company culture matters. Rewarding and motivating people matters. A mission statement can define what your business offers its employees. Qualities like fairness, diversity, respect for ideas and creativity, training, tools, empowerment, and the like, actually really matter.
What makes you different than your competitors? Defining your brand means thinking about its impact on the rest of the world.
Therefore, identifying how you do business can help to clearly define your mission. Once you've answered these questions, sit down with your team to discuss the main points you made and draft it up into a shorter, more targeted statement. Your final statement should encompass the three characteristics of a great mission statement: concise, outcome-oriented, and inclusive.
Once you've done your research, your team should work together to distill all of the information into a concise description of who you are, what you do, and why you do it. Review your statement, send it to your employees for suggestions, and make necessary edits to remove jargon, fluff, and buzzwords to create the most concise, impactful mission statement.
If you offer a long list of services, avoid listing them into a paragraph. Summarize it into your main objective — something you can quickly relay to someone without having their eyes glaze over. Do you just sell pizza, or do you create artisan pies that are reminiscent of when your grandparents used to pick fresh tomatoes from their garden at their home in Tuscany?
You started your business because you thought you could offer something special. Tell people what that is. You know how some people try too hard to sound intelligent by using obscure words only Foucault knows the meaning of? By the same token, make it as easy to understand as possible. If a person is not percent clear on what you do by reading your mission statement, you need to rewrite it. Your mission statement is not a short paragraph you include with your onboarding paperwork and then forget about it.
You want to get your entire team excited and inspired to get things done, and you want to be so proud of it, you display it everywhere — on your website, bulletin boards, email newsletters, or anywhere else your audience will likely see it.
Great mission statements aren't just written in a day; it takes time, experience, and trial and error to create a mission statement that represents and motivates your brand. Mission statements inspire others to act. They are the driving force of your business and keep your organization focused on accomplishing something greater in the long term.
Here are 21 companies you probably know and the mission statements that keep their business going. You wouldn't expect a mission statement like this coming from a technology company, would you? But Microsoft believes they can be more than that. Beyond making top-of-the-line products for consumers, they strive to lead the way in sustainability, promote diversity and inclusion, and encourage transparency in the workplace. Microsoft's mission statement expresses their belief in what people make possible.
These beliefs and values are translated directly into their products and corporate culture. When you step into Nordstrom, the employees want to give you the best experience possible with excellent service, selection, quality, and value.
This philosophy of superior customer service came from founder John W. But it doesn't stop there. As written perfectly on their about us page : "Fashion changes. Shopping changes. Our commitment to happy customers doesn't.
Southwest believes that their employees are what makes them different. I mean, I've never been on a Southwest flight I didn't enjoy! Therefore, they made sure their mission statement reflected their team philosophy down to the core. They strive for top-quality customer service by being friendly and showing off their company spirit with a smile. Even more, the company logically follows their mission statement with a commitment to their own employees:. Creativity and innovation are encouraged for improving the effectiveness of Southwest Airlines.
Above all, Employees will be provided the same concern, respect, and caring attitude within the organization that they are expected to share externally with every Southwest customer. Squarespace's mission statement encompasses every part of a "perfect" mission statement: The what, the how, and the why. What do they strive to do? Empower millions of people. How do they do it? Offer a platform where customers can share and distribute their innovative ideas.
Why do they do it? To help these creative individuals build a successful online presence. In eight simple words, you completely understand Squarespace's intentions and their purpose. And, since their launch in , millions of websites have been created through their platform — I'd say mission accomplished.
Uber is a popular rideshare app where users request a ride, get picked up from wherever they are, and get dropped off wherever they want. Yet their mission goes beyond getting people from point A to point B: With their technology, they hope to bring about new opportunities for their passengers, helping them meet new people and explore new places. It's quite simple, really: They want to set the world in motion. Think about it: Google gets over 63, search queries a second.
Honestly, I don't know the last time I had a question Google couldn't answer. Well, because it's easy to search and find the answers you're looking for. It seems that everything Google does revolves around its mission statement — they want to put all the information in the world into one useable platform so that people can find the information they need. There's a lot — I mean a lot — of information that gets put out onto the internet every day.
And, somehow, Google is able to gather every single piece of information and provide them to us when we're looking for something related. Google, I want to personally thank you for this. You've made my shopping experiences much more pleasant. Kickstarter is the world's largest crowdfunding platform that has helped tens of thousands of projects come to life through community support and donations. The company not only lives by its mission, but it measures its success based on accomplishing the mission, not just making money.
In , they became a Benefit Corporation, which is a for-profit company that considers "the impact of their decisions on society, not only shareholders. We should all know the word Tesla by now — it's those fancy-looking cars that practically have computer screens attached to the dashboard. By the way, you can set the screen as a moving fireplace to create a nice ambience. But Tesla's mission isn't just to create rocket ship cars — they put the environment first by creating top-notch electric vehicles.
Every model they've released thus far which, funny enough, spells out S3XY with a three in place of an E brings them a step closer to creating a sustainable energy ecosystem. To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions. I can't help but think of the movie previews where they show the cashier pouring Coke into a cup full of ice — they always make sure to get a close-up of the carbonation bubbles spilling over the edge.
But beyond a refreshment brand, The Coca-Cola Company wants you to know how a Coke should make you feel. They aim to bring happiness and positivity to their audience, and they treat their mission and vision as a roadmap for their company's success. As the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, Caterpillar hopes to make sustainability possible and drive positive change in the world.
Caterpillar's mission statement explains what they do and why they do it — ultimately, they want to protect the planet. And, to foster transparency with their customers, the company posted their goals on their website , which includes:. We're a purpose-driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. Quality is a state of mind at Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods Market is dedicated to providing quality food options to their customers — and they want to set a high example for all food retailers to do the same.
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