Most Mission Statements are Worthless

"Most corporate mission statements are worthless. They consist largely of pious platitudes...A mission statement should not commit a firm to what it must do to survive but to what it chooses to do in order to thrive. Nor should it be filled with operationally meaningless superlatives such as biggest, best, optimum, and maximum...

"To test for the appropriateness of an assertion in a mission statement, determine whether it can be disagreed with reasonably. If not, it should be excluded. Can you imagine any company disagreeing with the objective "to provide the best value for the money." If you can't, it's not worth saying.

"What characteristics should a mission statement have? First it should contain a formulation of the firm's objectives that enables progress toward them to be measured....Second, a company's mission statement should differentiate it from other companies...Third, a mission statement should define the business that the company wants to be in, not necessarily is in. However diverse its current business, it should try to find a unifying concept that enlarges its view of itself and brings it into focus...

Fourth, a mission statement should be relevant to all the firm's stakeholders. These include its customers, suppliers, the public, shareholders, and employees. The mission should state how the company intends to serve each of them...Finally, and of greatest importance, a mission statement should be exciting and inspiring. It should motivate all those whose participation in its pursuit is sought...

"If your firm has a mission statement, test it against these five criteria. If it fails to meet any of them, it should be redone.

Read more in this paper by Russel Ackoff. You may also wish to check out these related posts.

Share

How Do You Measure Up as a CEO?

"(rate performance on a 1-5 scale, 1 being least favorable and 5 being most favorabl...):

"Vision: Creates vision and strategy. Communicates vision and strategy both internally and externally.

"Leadership: Ensures the support and execution of the vision and strategy by:

"Establishment and communication of priorities;

Driving change for improvement throughout the organization;
Team-building; and
Creation of high performance environment.

"Operating Management: Develops and executes sound long-term and annual business plans in support of approved strategy. Manages operations and resources efficiently and effectively.

"Values and Integrity: Maintains consistent values and exemplary conduct. Promotes positive corporate culture to reflect corporate mission statement.

"Shareholder/Investor/Financial Community: Serves as chief spokesperson, communicating effectively with shareholders and stakeholders. Is well regarded and respected by investment and financial community.

"Strategic Partners: Maintains personal rapport with strategic partners through open, ongoing communications

"Human Resources: Ensures the development of effective employee recruitment, training, and plans and programs to provide and motivate the human resources necessary to achieve objectives.

"Public Relations: Ensures that the company and its operating units contribute appropriately to the well being of their communities and industries. Represents the company in community and industry affairs.

"Board Relations: Works effectively with the Board of Directors to keep them fully informed on all important aspects of the status and development of the Company. Facilitates the Board's governance, compositions, and committee structure. Implements Board policies and recommends policies for Board consideration. Supports a relationship characterized by trust, mutual respect, open communication and responsiveness to feedback. Uses Board meetings effectively.

"Financial Results: Financial Results – Establishes appropriate annual and long-term financial objectives and manages to consistently achieve these goals; ensures that appropriate systems are maintained to protect assets and maintain effective control of operations."

From this Seth Levine post.

Share

Live Authentically

From this excellent and inspirational post by Ann Ronan, Ph.D and Certified Career Coach:

1. Know your purpose
Are you wandering through life with little direction—hoping that you’ll find happiness, health and prosperity? Identify your life purpose or mission statement, and you'll have your own unique compass that will lead you to your true north every time.
2. Know your values...
3. Know your needs...
4. Know your passions...
5. Live from the inside out...
6. Honor your strengths...
7. Take time to play...
8. Be aware of your self-talk...
9. Surround yourself with inspiration...
10. Serve others...

When you live authentically, you may find that you develop an interconnected sense of being. When you are true to who you are, living your purpose and giving of your talents to the world around you, you give back in service what you came to share with others—your spirit—your essence.

Via Brewed Fresh Daily

Share

Is Business Ethics an Oxymoron?

Peruse a few of the vast numbers of articles and resources at BusinessEthics.ca and decide for yourself and your organization.

One example of the excellent available information is Incorporating Ethics into the Organization's Strategic Plan summarizing a presentation made by Robert Finocchio, former president, CEO, and chairman of Informix Corp.

:

Management guru Peter Drucker was famous for asking his consulting clients the basic strategic question, "What business are we in?" To integrate ethics into the strategy, businesspeople have to add three more questions...

What do we stand for?
What is our purpose?
What values do we have?

...While ethics should be part of the company's mission statement, long-term strategic plan, public pronouncements, and codes of conduct, unless it is also a "cornerstone of the organizational culture," it will not be effectively integrated into the business strategy, he said.

To really incorporate ethics, he presented these "prescriptions":

1. Don't be in an unethical business in the first place...
2. Obey the law and spirit of the law everywhere you do business.
3. Articulate a complete strategy, including purpose.
4. Explicitly articulate values as a key component to the strategy. 5. Values must also be real, and must reflect actual behavior, especially among the organization's leaders.
6. Don't rely on auditors, ethics officers, compliance officers, cops, regulations, manuals, and audits as the vehicle to insert ethics into the strategy.
7. Emphasize principles more than rules. (This is the best way to be more demanding of the organization.)
8. Individual ethical responsibility and accountability are never trumped by some corporate or organizational imperative.There is no "my company said it was ok" defense.
9. Be totally transparent with your constituents, and make that part of the strategy.
10. Have a framework and process for the resolution of ethical issues.
11. Have the right organizational structure.
12. Have rewards based on the right metrics.
13. Make employee development part of strategy and make ethics training part of employee development.
14. Encourage all employees to be challenging and demanding in the ethical domain (of everyone in the organization, including the bosses).

Finocchio went on to offer two practical suggestions for implementing his prescriptions: making an ethics performance evaluation part of the organization's standard end-of-year assessment and creating a strategic plan ethics checklist for the coming year...In planning for the next year, the company would ask itself a series of questions, including:

*Is our purpose sufficiently well articulated?
*Do we face new legal requirements?
*Do we have new constituents?
*If we acquire another organization, how will it be ethically assimilated?
*Are our rewards structures appropriate?
*Is there any need to change the mechanics (constituent communication, employee training, organizational structure, issue resolution processes)?
*How will we measure our performance?
*Do we have new goals/objectives in the ethical domain?

Share

Create a Mini Business Plan

Create a mini business plan free online at this startup.wsj.com site. Test your assumptions and start documenting your ideas for your new business. The MiniPlan guides you through creating the basics of a business plan including:

Break-Even Analysis
Market Analysis
Executive Summary
Company Objectives
Mission Statement

Share

Seconds & Inches Measure Life & Death

Buddhas
By D. Cerminaro.

My daughter teaches at an international school in Chaing Mai, Thailand. During her fall break, she participated in a Charity Bike Ride to raise funds for the relief of tsunami victims. What follows are excerpts from her account of the trip. Also featued are her photographs. If you wish to contribute to the relief effort please visit http://www.pierssimonappeal.org/v2/

Day 1 & 2:
Starting in the busy streets of Chiang Mai, we biked north along the Ping river valley and into the "land of a million rice fields." As we passed by small villages, workers and especially children frequently turned their attention to us to smile and wave in the typically warm and friendly Thai manner. "Hello! Sawadee ka!" they yelled as we cycled past or paused to take pictures. We climbed the foothills of the nearby mountains and ultimately reached spectacular views of limestone mountains.

IMG_0725
by D. Cerminaro.

A few of the off road trails led us past remote hill tribe villages. The hill tribes are an interesting and colorful ethnic minority in Thailand who live in rural mountain areas and have preserved many of their traditional ways. The hill tribe children were interested and mesmerized by us - our bikes, our cameras, and especially our food.

IMG_0734
by D. Cerminaro

Day 3:
The purpose of our trip was to raise money for the Piers Simon Appeal. My friend Luke was vacationing on the island of Koh Phi Phi in December 2004 with his brother Piers and three friends, including one friend, Ben, who was also on the bike trip.

They were sitting in a café near the beach when a few people came running through the café and out the back door, knocking over chairs on their way. Following their instincts, they too ran out the back. They found absolute chaos in the streets, people running in all directions with no idea what was happening. The reality was beyond imagination.

They followed the crowds and ran away from the water that they could now see approaching. They ran hand in hand but the panicking crowds quickly and hopelessly separated them. Luke managed to climb onto a roof, Ben and the others found safety, but Piers went missing. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone.

It was all a matter of seconds and inches. Seconds and inches determined who managed to find something to hold onto and who was carried away, who was hit by passing debris and who was left without a scratch, who lived and who died.

Luke spent five days conducting the search for his brother and finally found Piers, his body having been taken to a Chinese Morgue in Krabi. Luke launched the Piers Simon Appeal soon after. Its mission statement is "To aid the regeneration of communities and alleviate suffering and hardship caused by disasters worldwide regardless of race, religion, or politics."

IMG_0770
by D. Cerminaro

Today we were introduced to, or for Luke and Ben reminded of, the potentially destructive power of water. We traveled off our route to reach the small Chinese village of Bang Yang which was devastated by a flash flood about a week earlier. We walked through the muddy streets, past houses missing first floors and empty lots where houses used to stand. In the village of about 250 houses, almost half were destroyed or severely damaged in the flood. The villagers luckily had some warning of the oncoming flood so most reached safety, but they had no idea what a toll it would take on the village. Five people lost their lives.

IMG_0781
by D. Cerminaro

It was difficult to walk around the town, faced with so much devastation, clearly sticking out as a "farang" (foreigner) in spandex, camera in hand. What made it different was that we went to the village with the purpose of finding a reliable contact so that some our own fundraising money might be used for rebuilding the village.

It's an irreplaceable experience to see this kind of destruction with your own eyes. There's a duality that invariably exists in these kind of trips that separates the long-term charity side from the daily bike riding and socializing. Today these aspects were united, and while it created a more somber tone, it reminded us of both the devastation that can occur and our ability to help.

IMG_0791
by D. Cerminaro

Days 4, 5, & 6:
Today we biked 20 km and then took a long-tail boat down the Mekong River. After another 7 k of off-road biking we took a side trip to a small village where we fed elephants and held an enormous snake that weighed 120 kilograms and was about 4 ½ meters long! On the fifth and final day, we biked 100 km, again passing breathtaking scenery of mountains and rice fields along the way. We finally arrived at ourdestination- the legendary Golden Triangle, with views from Thailand of both Burma and Laos.

Share

Strategic Planning FAQs

" 1. What is strategic planning?
2. What are the key concepts and definitions in strategic planning?
3. What are the basic steps in a strategic planning process?
4. What do I need to know before I start the planning process?
5. What are the individual roles in a planning process?
6. What's in a mission statement?
7. What's in a vision statement?
8. What is a situation assessment?
9. How can we do a competitive analysis?
10. What is a strategy and how do we develop one?
11. What should a strategic plan include?
12. How do you develop an annual operating plan?
13. How do we increase our chances of implementing our strategic plan?
14. Should I use an external consultant?
15. How do I use retreats in the planning process?"

Answers may be found in this article from Alliance for Nonprofit Management: Strategic Planning.

Share

Twenty Five Project Management Tips

"1. Develop a team consensus on the nature of the problem...
2. Remember and follow the mission statement...
3. Develop a project strategy that will meet all project objectives.
4. Check back periodically...
5. Determine milestones and benchmarks...
6. Get buy-in from all stakeholders...
7. Choose the right people for the project team...
8. Work as a team...
9. Be realistic...
10. Plan the project by answering questions...
11. Brainstorm solution options, then choose...
12. Negotiate for scarce resources.
13. Have a deliverable at each major project milestone...
14. Qualify estimates...
15. Don't schedule any task with a duration greater than four to six weeks...
16. Continually ask questions...
17. Avoid the temptation to perfect everything...
18. Keep float or extra time in reserve...
19. Keep critical tasks on schedule... 20. Be alert to roadblocks and be very pro-active...
21. Consider co-locating team members on critical tasks...
22. Identify team members who will champion various parts of the project...
23. Don't let project members wait until the latest possible start time to begin...
24. Remember the Triple Constraint: to complete the project at cost, on time, and in keeping with the scope set and customer expectations.
25. Do a post mortem review..."

Read more in article from the American Management Association.

Share

Software Freedom Law Center Born

"The Software Freedom Law Center is born. It will provide pro bono legal services 'to eligible non-profit open source software projects and developers' and note it is a global invitation. That could be you.

Here is their mission statement from the new website:

'We provide legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. Free and Open Source Software ('FOSS') is maturing at a rapid pace. The FOSS production ecosystem, once dominated by a few small not-for-profit entities and individual contributors, now includes a global array of individuals, not-for-profit entities, and commercial developers and redistributors. In this mixed-model organizational environment, all FOSS developers must have an environment where liability and other legal issues do not impede their important public service work. The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) provides legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance FOSS.' "

From this GROKLAW post.

Share

Mantra not Mission Statement

From Paul Allen: Internet Entrepreneur:

"Guy Kawasaki's advice for startups: skip the mission statement, build a mantra instead (usually just a couple of words describing what you do). If you really need a mission statement, use Mission Statement Generator."

An example:

It's our responsibility to authoritatively revolutionize parallel methods of empowerment and professionally engineer corporate technology to exceed customer expectations.

Share