Mission Implausible?

Balancing Aspiration and Believability in an Organization’s Mission

Is your job just a job? Or do you see in it a higher meaning? A recent Wall Street Journal article – as well as a new commercial – has me mulling over the value and plausibility of how we define and promote corporate meaning.

Those that know me well know that I’m a mission/vision skeptic. It’s not because I don’t believe in the value of such statements; on the contrary I believe they can be critical to an organization’s long-term success. Rather, it’s because I’m convinced that too few attempts at capturing organizational meaning are actually reflective of what an organization is, what it seeks to accomplish, how it is viewed by its own people, and the benefits external audiences see and experience.

Rachel Feintzeig’s recent Journal piece reflects on how companies are trying to “inject meaning into the daily grind” by establishing the higher meaning behind what their organizations – and their employees – do every day. It’s a noble goal – and an important one. But there are often significant gaps and blind spots between goals and the outcomes that define whether you nail it or just get nailed.

Some organizations do it better than others. For example, a new ad from Microsoft features an employee who equates what he does for a living – he’s a cloud computing engineer – with the outcomes it enables: he tells us his work enables cancer researchers to more quickly process data from trials that in turn may expedite new treatments. Aspirational yes, but also plausible.

Not all companies do as well. Take this example cited by Ms. Feintzeig: an accounting firm that associates its services with the successful election of Nelson Mandela, the resolution of the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981, or my favorite – advancements in medicine because doctors and researchers weren’t worrying about doing their taxes.

The two companies took the same approach, extrapolating end benefits into a greater mission; one does so credibly, the other not so much. So what’s behind the gap between the two outcomes? Certainly the biggest difference is plausibility. This may seem obvious in hindsight or when viewed from the outsider’s perspective. In fairness, it’s not always as obvious to otherwise smart people whose efforts are earnest but whose focus is trained more on a goal or concept and less on underlying factors that ultimately determine success or failure.

So how can companies successfully imbue their enterprises with a level of meaning that will ring true with the people who are doing the work, as well as with those on whose behalf they do it?

There are a few keys:

1. Work in a big tent: Those of us who do this for a living have our stories about a mission statement or a tagline created in the mind of a single leader or in a meeting of select executives at a corporate retreat. Whoever you seek to reach must in some way be included in the process. Customers, clients, investors, partners. If you want your message to resonate with them, get their feedback.
2. Understand the points of pain: Do you fully understand the pain your clients/customers face and how your products/services ease that pain? For your message to resonate, you’ll need to know the answers.
3. Do a culture check: Does the positioning you are considering fit the culture of your organization? Will it seem genuine? If not, you’ll do more harm than good.
4. Apply the Kevin Bacon test: Can you intellectually get to the outcomes you state within two degrees (not six) of separation from the work you actually do? In not, you risk straining credibility.
5. Follow the path … and don’t skip steps: Impactful statements of mission, vision or value are built through process, reasoning, analysis, debate and alignment. Skipping steps, even if the answers seem obvious, is a risk you don’t want to take.

Here’s the thing about statements of mission, vision and value. They’re important because they can rally and focus an entire organization. And yes, they can crystalize the higher meaning behind the workday. But they are serious business, and they are too often not treated as such. Establishing higher meaning won’t just come from a quick discussion at the company retreat, nor can it come from the mind of any one person, no matter how intuitive they might be.

The best are created through a systematic approach that establishes clear organizational traits, goals and benefits. Whatever you create will be judged by many. So make sure you get input from all of the judges. And get some outside help to guide you through the process.