Breaking Down the Game Film – Mission Statements
03 Nov 2009“Breaking Down the Game Film” is a term commonly used to analyze tape from an already played sports game to dissect what went right and what went wrong. In this series I’ll be taking published articles from around the web and break them down.
Topic: Mission Statements
Article: “How to Write a Mission Statement that Isn’t Dumb”
Link: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/do-something-wordplay.html
Short Summary: The time used to generate most mission statements would be better spent burning $20s in the alley behind your office building. Identify your company’s quantifiable goals and write a statement that will inspire people to rally behind those goals.
Analysis:
Quick! What is your company’s mission statement?
Can you find it on your internal website?
Can you find it on their external customer facing website?
Ok, now that you have found it how do you feel? Quick, one word!
I’ll spot you the word, let’s go with underwhelmed.
Now, compound that feeling with the thought of how many man-hours it took to produce that mission statement.
It’s ok if you are now openly weeping…let it out. I know your company couldn’t buy you that brand new computer chair last year, they had to write a very bland statement that serves no purpose to you or your daily life. Sure, the new computer chair would have been nice, but they really needed that sentence on their website.
Before reading this article I wouldn’t have given a company mission statement a second thought. One of the tools I use, Microsoft Team Foundation Server, a task tracking and source control system, starts every project with a few pre-populated tasks. One of those tasks is to write the project’s mission statement. I normally skipped this step; I never saw any value to burning any calories on attempting to define the mission statement for an individual project.
However, after reading this article something clicked for me, making me reconsider the value of the mission statement.
Do you want to add a feature to the project? Will that feature further project development? Does it mesh with your mission statement?
Yes: Continue investigating the idea.
No: Drop it and move on with your life.
Quick and simple.
Caution.
Like any tool in your toolbox overuse the mission statement and your co-workers will become numb to its effects. Engineers smell b.s. from a mile away, if you show up Monday morning chanting your company’s mission statement, wearing a shirt with the statement on it, and hand out pictures of you posing with the mission statement you will lose them. “Sure boss, great idea, I’ll put on my hat with the mission statement tomorrow…today it would clash with my outfit.”
If you are going to take the time to do so, write the mission statement with care, capture that goal, write it in such a way as to inspire people to work towards that goal, but be sure to not over use it.