Mission Statement = mission impossible?

By Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcrum

Business Consultant Michael Clark, aka Bozo, questioned the trend that is the Mission Statement on his blog, Bozo's Return Friday just gone.

He says that

"...(professional communicators and executives) communicate in ways that impress each other, and not in ways that have real impact on the audience."

"...(the mission statement) has a reputation as a load of touchy feely nonsense that has no meaning for employees (or customers for that matter). This is a tragedy that is not the fault of the concept, but the fault of its applicators. This has become a box that needs ticking. In ticking the box, large organizations surgically remove the value."

So, companies spend hours thinking up their Mission Statement, umming and aahing over each word, but do employees understand it? Do they even know it? And if they do, do they buy it? What if a company genuinely believes in its mission statement and really lives by it, but there's just a case of cynics Vs. optimists? Some people tend to be driven by these kinds of things and others are completely put off. Should the Mission Statement be scrapped, or should companies stick with it and just accept that there's always a bunch of cynics within each organization? I agree with Bozo in that the concept itself is a powerful one, but when does a Mission Statement become a gimmick? Is it when there's overexposure and, as Bozo says, when the words are seen everywhere from bookmarks to mouse pads to coffee coasters?

I went along to Melcrum's advanced writing and editing training course a couple of weeks ago, and our trainer did the modern equivalent of caning us whenever we used corporate jargon in our work. The group of internal communicators started off by fiercely defending the use of words like "leveraging" and "synergies", and actually found it a challenge to write anything without using them. However, by the end of the two days each person spat out their most hated examples of jargon and overused corporate statements, vowing to find a less cringeworthy alternative from that moment onwards. And yes,  "Mission Statement" definitely came up more than once. (You can hear this, and an interview with the trainer Sue Heal on the latest Melcrum Podcast)

Whether or not my fellow trainees actually went on to omit these phrases from their corporate messages, I'm yet to find out, but your thoughts on the Mission Statement would be interesting to know.

Sona

P.S Apologies for any cliches in the above!