► SO MUCH HOT AIR ABOUT SOMETHING SO REAL
"Mission" and "values" have got to be among the most abstract, overused, misunderstood words in business. When we speak with audiences, we get asked about them frequently, usually with some level of panic over their actual meaning and relevance. (In New York, we once got the question, “Can you please define the difference between a mission and a value, and also tell us what difference that difference makes?”) Business schools add to the confusion by having their students regularly write mission statements and debate values, a practice made even more futile for being carried out in a vacuum. Lots of companies do the same to their senior executives, usually in an attempt to create a noble-sounding plaque to hang in the company lobby.
Too often, these exercises end with a set of generic platitudes that do nothing but leave employees directionless or cynical. Who doesn’t know of a mission statement that reads something like, “XYZ Company values quality and service,” or, “Such-and-Such Company is customer driven.” Tell me what company doesn’t value quality and service or focus on its customers! And who doesn’t know of a company that has spent countless hours in emotional debate only to come up with “values” that, despite the good intentions that went into them, sound like they were plucked from an all-purpose list of virtues including “integrity, quality, excellence, service, and respect.” Come on! Every decent company espouses these things! And frankly, integrity is just a ticket to the game. If you don’t have it in your bones, you shouldn’t be allowed on the field.
By contrast, a good mission statement and a good set of values are so real they smack you in the face with their concreteness. The mission announces exactly where you are going, and the values describe the behaviors that will get you there. Speaking of that, we would favor abandoning the term “values” altogether in favor of just “behaviors.” But for the sake of tradition, let’s stick with the common terminology.
► FIRST: ABOUT THAT MISSION
An effective mission statement basically answers one question: How do we intend to win in this business?
It does not answer: What did we used to be good at in the good old days? Nor does it answer: How can we describe our business so that no particular unit or division or senior executive gets pissed off?
Instead, the question “How do we intend to win in this business?” is defining. It requires companies to make choices about people, investments, and other resources, and prevents them from falling into the common mission trap of asserting they will be all things to all people at all times. The question forces companies to delineate their strengths and weaknesses and assess where they can profitably play in the competitive landscape.
Yes, profitably – that’s the key. Even Ben & Jerry’s, the crunchy-granola, hippy, save-the-world ice cream company based in Vermont, has “profitable growth and increased value for stakeholders” as one of the elements of its three-part mission statement because its executives know what that without financial success, all the social goals in the world don’t have a chance.
Now, that’s not saying a mission shouldn’t be bold or aspirational. Ben & Jerry’s, for instance, wants to sell “all-natural and euphoric concoctions” and “improve the quality of life locally, nationally and internationally.” That kind of language is great in that it absolutely has the power to excite people and motivate them to stretch.
At the end of the day, effective mission statements balance the possible and the impossible. They give people a clear sense of the direction to profitability and the inspiration to feel they are part of something big and important.
A final word about missions, and it concerns their creation. How do you come up with one?
This is a no-brainer. You can input from anywhere – and you should listen to smart people from every quarter. But setting the mission is top management’s responsibility. A mission cannot, and must not, be delegated to anyone except the people ultimately held accountable for it.
In fact, a mission is the defining moment for a company’s leadership.
It’s a true test of its stuff.
► …AND NOW ABOUT THOSE VALUES
Values are just behaviors – specific, nitty-gritty, and so descriptive they leave little to the imagination. People must be able to use them as marching orders because they are the how of the mission, the means to the end -- winning.
In contrast to the creation of a mission, everyone in a company should have something to say about values. Yes, that can be a messy undertaking. That’s OK. In a small enterprise, everyone can be involved in debating them in all kinds of meetings. In a larger organization, it’s a lot tougher. But you can use company-wide meetings, training sessions, and the like, for as much personal discussion as possible, and the intranet for broader input.
Getting more participation really makes a difference, giving you more insights and more ideas, and at the end of the process, most importantly, much more extensive buy-in.
The actual process of creating values, incidentally, has to be iterative. The executive team may come up with a first version, but it should be just that, a first version. Such a document should go out to be poked and probed by people all over an organization, over and over again. And the executive team has to go out of their way to be sure they’ve created an atmosphere where people feel it is their obligation to contribute.
Now if you’re in a company where speaking up gets you whacked, this method of developing values just isn’t going to work. I understand that, and as long as you stay, you’re going to have to live with that generic plaque in the front hall.
But if you’re at a company that does welcome debate – and many do -- shame on you if you don’t contribute to the process. If you want values and behaviors that you understand and can live yourself, you have to make the case for them.
► AND NOW...MAKING THE CONNECTION
A concrete mission is great. And values that describe specific behaviors are too. But for a company’s mission and values to truly work together as a winning proposition, they have to be mutually reinforcing.
It seems obvious, doesn’t it, that a company’s values should support its mission, but it’s amazingly easy for that not to be the case. A disconnect between the parts of a company’s framework probably is more a sin of omission rather than commission, but it often happens.
In the most common scenario, a company’s mission and its values rupture due to the little crises of daily life in business – a competitor moves into town and lowers prices, and so do you, undermining your mission of competing on extreme customer service. Or a downturn hits, and so you cut your advertising budget, forgetting your mission is to enhance and extend your brand.
These examples of disconnections may sound minor or temporary, but when left unattended, they can really hurt a company.
► NO MORE HOT AIR
This section opened with the observation that people in business talk a lot about mission and values, but too often the result is more hot air than real action. No one wants it that way, but the loftiness and the imprecision inherent in both terms always seem to make it end up like that.
But there is too much to lose by not getting your mission straight and by not making your values concrete. We're not saying your company will collapse in flames, but we are saying your company will not reach anywhere near its potential if all that is guiding it is bunch of very pleasant platitudes hanging on the lobby wall.
Look, we realize that defining a good mission and developing the values that support it takes time and enormous commitment. There will be long contentious meetings when you would rather go home. There will be email debates when you wish you could just go do real work. There will be painful times when you have to say goodbye to people you really like who just do not get the mission or live its values. On days like those, you might wish your mission and values were vague and generic.
They can’t be.
Take the time. Spend the energy.
Make them real.
This text is based on material from Winning
Copyright © 2005 HarperCollins
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