Why does your company need a mission statement? A mission statement works to remind you, your employees, and your clients or customers what your focus should be. It’s upfront about your values and gives you something to strive for and refer to when you’re trying to get your career back on track and make a decision about taking the company in a certain direction. Essentially, it defines the culture of your company. A great mission statement can also help your business stand out amid competitors.
Be Specific
You’ve probably read company mission statements before that you’ve come away from wondering what exactly the business does. Avoid this mistake by being concrete. Take a statement like “serve our community.” What exactly does that mean? Are you literally looking to serve your community, meaning that you’re a restaurant serving food? If you’re a clothing store, come out and say it: “We provide fashionable outdoor gear.” You can refine your statement about what your company does as you revise it, but for now, at minimum, say what your business does with clarity.
Identify Values
The desire to serve your community is probably one of your values, not the sole purpose of your business. Identify other values, whatever they are: beauty, integrity, loyalty. Once you have identified those values, you can look at how to integrate them with your company’s function. Maybe “We sell fashionable outdoor gear to encourage our community to become more physically active.” Now you’ve said what you do and linked it to your value of helping the community.
Set an Example
Your next step is to show both employees and customers that you are living up the values expressed in the mission statement. This can mean making sure that your staff have the tools they live up to that statement. If a commitment to safety is a value mentioned in your mission statement and you’re cutting corners on OSHA compliance issues, your employees, and your customers may regard that statement as a sham. Utilizing fleet dash cams are one way to demonstrate a commitment to safety. These offer benefits to both drivers and managers, providing greater visibility, cutting back on accidents and reducing collision-related costs. Whatever your values, identify specific things you can do to show that you operate within the parameters they set.
Keep the Statement Visible
The best mission statement in the world won’t do any good if it isn’t conveyed to employees and customers in a way that reminds them of it regularly. While putting it on a sign that hangs in a common area in the workplace is a good idea, this is not enough since people will quit noticing it once they are accustomed to it. Think of the mission statement as a kind of living thing. Refer to it regularly in meetings. Give out awards to employees who do the best job of using soft skills to approach work in a way that highlights it. Mention it in your advertising. Make it a part of your brand. Don’t be afraid to rework the mission statement over time as well. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a change in your values has taken place, but you may want to change the way you express them.
