Writing a Mission Statement is a complex activity involving every level of the organization. Here's how to get started.
Difficulty: Hard
Time Required: 90 minutes
Here's How:
- List the organization's core competencies; its unique strengths and weaknesses.
- List the organization's primary customers, internal or external, by type, not by name.
- Review how each customer relates to each of the organization's strengths. Ask them if possible.
- Write a one-sentence description of each customer/strength pairing.
- Combine any that are essentially the same.
- List the sentences in order of importance to the organization's vision, if one exists.
- Combine the top three to five sentences into a paragraph.
- Ask your customers if they would want to do business with an organization with that mission.
- Ask your employees if they understand and support it and can act on it.
- Ask your suppliers if it makes sense to them.
- Incorporate the feedback from customers, employees and suppliers and repeat the process.
- When you have refined the paragraph into statements that clearly articulates the way the company wants to relate to those it effects, publish it to everyone. Post it on the wall, email it to everyone, etc.
Tips:
- A good mission statement provides strategic vision and direction for the organization and should not have to be revised every few years. Goals and objectives are the short-term measures used to get there.
- Revise the organization's mission statement when it is no longer appropriate or relevant.
