>
 |
| Photo credit: Oh My Higgs |
Venture capitalist and author Guy Kawaskaki says in his book, The Art of the Start and in this video that a business should “make mantra” or what he describes as a verbal formula that contains the business’ “mystical potentialities.” Some of the examples he gives are:
- Nike – Authentic athletic performance
- Wendy’s – Healthy fast food
- FedEx – Peace of mind.
Kawasaki is talking about defining the meaning of your business, and as he does this he mercilessly slams the mission statement. This slamming of the mission statement is not a surprise and it is common practice for marketers and new-age consultants to diss something so Drucker. Sometimes quite justifiably. Mission statements are often crafted as marketing messages, sort of a “here’s-what-we-want-you-to-think-we-are“ statement. But you shouldn’t mistake all this ridicule and misuse of the mission statement to mean you don’t need a mission.
Missions and Brand Creation
Missions launch brands, they don’t make them warm, fuzzy, and likable. It was a mission that launched brand U.S.A. as a nation of innovators, pioneers and achievers when President John Kennedy declared “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.“ Had Guy Kawasaki and modern-day consultants been in the audience, would they have criticized the President in their blogs the next day for giving us a mission rather than a mantra?
Missions define a purpose for being, answering the question: Why does your business exist? If you start a business simply so you can be your own boss, or because you are really good at what you do, you’re not going to get very far. And you definitely won’t have a brand. No, you’ve got to have a mission, a destination of sorts, of what you want to accomplish. Had President Kennedy said “I think we could be pretty good at this space travel stuff, let’s see how far we can go,” there might still be no flags planted on the surface of the moon.
Missions are also for the employees. If you have clearly defined why the business exists, now you can clearly communicate the purpose of the business to employees. A major reason for sorry customer service and employee apathy is that most employees believe they just have a job. They show up for work, they put their time in, they get a paycheck. People often work for years at a business without ever knowing why they are doing what they do. Give your employees something to shoot for: give them a mission and watch how they change.
Mission Creation
So if you’re going to go places, you need a mission, and you can learn a lot from President Kennedy’s future altering mission:
- Leadership – Kennedy was a leader and his mission was one of leadership. Notice how he used the word “I” in his mission: “I believe.” He was the President and he wasn’t afraid to set the course. And the course was one of leadership, going to the moon was something that had never been done before.
- Action – Look at all the action verbs in the moon mission: commit, achieve, landing, returning. This wasn’t a mission of image, this was a mission of action.
- Measureable – “before this decade is out…landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” There would be no doubt whether or not the mission was accomplished.
- Bigness – Going to the Moon was big. It was inspiring. It stimulated the imagination.
- Plausible – Yet, we knew it was possible. By this time the world has seen space travel and now dared think it could travel to other heavenly bodies.
In defense of the mission, it is not my intention to contradict the venerable Guy Kawasaki. In fact, I really like what Kawasaki has to say about mantras and meaning. But before you can make your mantra, you need a purpose, and your purpose is your mission. What’s yours?