Does anyone really care about mission statements anymore?
No matter how you feel personally about the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage, as someone who helps people verbalize their ideas and goals in a way that people understand it, support it and take action on it…
…I had to give credit to the couple who filed the suit and their legal team for creating a passionate, clear and actionable request for the court (and the general public) to consider which ultimately ended in them getting the ruling that they wanted.
As I watched the different debates fly back and forth, I couldn’t help but ‘score’ the goals of both sides of the argument and a clear winner emerged on ability to communicate the message.
Thankfully, most of us are not having to create messaging on something that carries so much political controversy and emotions. That said, this instance did show how one cause mastered a ‘one minute message’ or OM3TM as I call it to make something very big happen.
How do Mission Statements differ from Mission Messages?
NO ONE READS MISSION STATEMENTS – or at least very rarely.
A well-crafted mission message will identify the value of your idea for the target audience, the action(s) you want them to take, and the outcome(s) you want to produce.
When practiced and you ‘nail it’, you can easily do this in one minute or less.
However, you don’t have an entire minute when sharing your idea on your website as you can lose people in 7 seconds. In meetings, you may have a captive audience, but you don’t control their minds.
How good are you at getting your ideas across?
How do you master this?
It takes practice.
Start by browsing through the online mission statements of 10 of the top small businesses in the United States who are trying to get their big idea across to you.
I think some of them nailed it, while others could use some tweaking. While you read through them, ask yourself:
- Who are they talking to?
- What exactly do they do?
- How do they do it?
- Why do they do it?
- What do they believe?
- Do I even care after reading this?
The clearer the value, actions, and desired outcomes of the organization are, the greater the impact of the idea on you.
After you are done reading the online mission statements below, be sure to write your own by downloading and using my free Idea Statement Worksheet from my best-selling book, Mission to Million$ – Taking Big Ideas and Making Them Reality.
The best and most impactful OM3sTM include:
- Connecting with you mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually,
- Simplicity of words and message,
- Clear value that keeps you listening, or reading or watching, and
- ACTION – something you can do immediately to engage with the idea
- A request – ask you for something
- Next steps – we hate to be left hanging
- Appreciation and thankfulness
Want to learn more about crafting your One Minute Mission Message (OM3)?
BE THE CRITIC – WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE COMPANIES?
Afterburner
MISSION STATEMENT: Servant Leadership. Stronger Partnerships.
Traditional consulting and training entails gurus providing recommendations, leaving you and your team to execute their solutions. If you’re successful in implementation, how will you drive adoption and sustainment? Whether you seek enterprise level culture or change leadership, high-level strategy development or even simple project-based initiatives with one-time deliverables – often their transactional engagements fall short of expectations. Are you ready for a simple, scalable, holistic solution you and your team can own? A process that creates a shared common model of execution that aligns and enables accountable action.
Air Force One
MISSION STATEMENT: A FOUNDATION OF INTEGRITY
FROM OUR CORE BUSINESS TO OUR COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT, OUR VISION DEFINES US IN EVERYTHING WE DO AND HOW WE DO IT. ALWAYS.
As one team dedicated to personal ownership and service to others, we keep our core values at the root of everything we do:
INTEGRITY: promising unmatched honesty and reliability.
HUMILITY: thinking of others before yourself.
INTELLIGENCE: providing thoughtful and reasonable decisions.
HUNGER: striving to progress and improve.
Our vision inspires us to act with unmatched professionalism and quality everyday.
With like-minded customers, we strive to deliver smart solutions, comfortable environments and optimal building performance, to achieve our dream of elevating the image and integrity of our industry.
Blink UX
MISSION STATEMENT: Making Technology Human
Born out of the passion to make things easier to use, Blink UX was built on the foundation of science and design and the idea that all things can be intuitive if they are designed with a deep understanding of human behavior.
Cue Ball
MISSION STATEMENT: Human capital is everything.
By realizing its potential, things become faster, better, or just more beautiful and so the world gets a little bit better.
We seek great people with bold ideas that dare to create new standards. But to walk together we must share the same path, which is paved with our core values:
Integrity and reputation above all else.
Commit to adding value.
Infectiously learn and infectiously mentor.
Embrace optimism; suspend disbelief.
Be a seeker of truth and self-awareness.
Headsets.com
MISSION STATEMENT: This is normally where we tell you how professional and experienced we are. We’re going to skip all that jazz and instead talk about you. You’re the reason we’ve been in business since 1997. Thank you! And to repay you for supporting us all these years, we’re going to work our hardest to give you the best damn service you’ve ever received.
New Belgium Brewery
MISSION STATEMENT: Culture has become the new buzz word in business, and folks love to ask “what’s your culture like?”
Here’s the thing: culture isn’t about what you say; it’s about what you do.
Company values that are posted to a corporation’s website, or displayed on a poster in their lobby, don’t get you too far when it comes to truly influencing the level of engagement & love that your workforce feels for the company. It takes a lot more dedication than that.
High Involvement Culture
We believe that our dedication to high involvement culture and a loving, high performing workforce sets us apart. We believe that the collective is stronger than the individual and that informed coworkers will make responsible decisions.
Quality Bicycle Products
MISSION STATEMENT: QBP distribution has a very intentional mission: to bolster bike shop success by providing a high inventory of the best cycling products in the world, and reliably shipping those products to dealers exactly when they need it.
Radio Flyer
MISSION STATEMENT: When our grandfather Antonio Pasin started Radio Flyer in 1917, his dream was to “bring joy to every boy and every girl”. Today, the Radio Flyer family continues that tradition by building safe, quality toys that spark imagination and inspire active play. From the original little red wagon to our current wagons, tricycles, scooters, and other ride-ons, our toys bring smiles to children and families around the world and create warm memories that last a lifetime.
Redmond
MISSION STATEMENT: For traditional companies, every decision is designed to drive profit—the ultimate goal of the business. At Redmond, profit matters (without it, there would be no business), but we view profit as the means to a more important end: elevating the human experience.
It sounds unconventional or insincere, we know. We’ve been called naïve by some and arrogant by others, and we understand that our way of business wouldn’t work for a lot of companies. But it works well for us.
Balsam Brands
MISSION STATEMENT: At Balsam, people come first. Success follows.
We love to reimagine eCommerce and retail in ways that thrill our customers, and to leave a lasting impact on the world around us. We’re a dynamic, fun-loving team that sees possibilities, solves complex puzzles, and innovates in all that we do.
