As seen on the Strategic Leadership Model above, the Mission as a tool is EXTREMELY important since EVERYTHING else ties to it. It defines, among other things:

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• Top level processes - organizational structure

• What and where to measure.

• Priorities in terms of improvements and elimination of waste. Any activity utilizes resources but does not support (adds value to) the Mission is waste and should be eliminated.

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Mission - a definition​

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• Purpose, reason why an organization exists

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• Written from a perspective of value created for market and society.

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• Short and easy to remember (15 words max - includes articles, pronouns... i.e. words like: the, a... count!)

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• If understood by the organization, it helps eliminate the sub-optimization of resources. (doing something for the good of one part of the organization, but unknowingly hurting the overall effectiveness)

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• Should be expanded (meaning of key words clearly explained in separate complementary paragraphs)

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IF you do NOT have a Mission statement, skip straight to the next section below called WRITING YOUR MISSION STATEMENT.

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If you have a MISSION STATEMENT already created and in use, please type it in the Strategic Framework Section; BUT, before doing that, ask yourself:

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Should we revise or rewrite our Mission?

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Discuss the following questions. If your answer to anyone of those is not or not sure, you should probably review your Mission Statement by going through the process on the section WRITING YOUR MISSION STATEMENT below

 

1. Is your actual Mission Statement 15 words or less (everything, including articles and prepositions, count as words)?                                               

2. If I randomly ask 5% of your employees what is your Mission Statement, will they know it without looking for it somewhere?

                                                           

3. Does your mission statement reflects VALUE that is easily recognized by a customer?

                                                                              

4. Is your mission statement quite unique, differentiated, when compared to organizations like yours?

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5. Do you and your team can answer a firm YES to ALL questions on the last section here: Testing the Mission Statement 

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If you answered NO or NOT SURE to any of the above questions, you should consider doing some work on your MISSION STATEMENT next.

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WRITING YOUR MISSION STATEMENT - Process Guidelines

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• In 15 words or less, describe what unique value you bring to the market as an organization.

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• If performed with your team, separate into subteams, work the statements separately and then work together to merge as one statement.

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• A mission statement usually has three component: 1. a verb (action word; i.e. provide, ensure, produce, serve...), 2. an explicit benefit (so it is not generic but focused), i.e. efficiency, capacity, technology focused words), and 3. a recipient of the value (i.e. customers, citizen, country, market... sometimes it is NOT spelled out but remains IMPLICIT in the statement.

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• If you break up into two or three teams, you will come up with three statements that require conciliation and discussion.... this is great! It creates depth and understanding.

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• Start by acknowledging that now there are no individual authors of the 2 or 3 statements in front of you, that you will all work together on creating "one best statement".

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• Begin the dialogue by pointing out the verbs of each of the statements and ask the question: What describes best what we should be doing is which verb... once a verb is agreed upon, do the same for the value and for the recipient... do NOT cut corners in this discussion.

• Perform an "agree round" where all participants VOICE OUT LOUD if they agree with the final product. If any one does not, ask specifically why and discuss further... if no agreement seems to surface from just one or two people, ask them if they "can live" with what the rest of the ST is proposing. If yes... continue, if no try longer and deeper to get to consensus. If consensus does not happen... the decision goes to the CEO or owner. NOTE: EVEN a final decision from this exercise might need to get to a BOARD LEVEL decision, depending on the particular governance rules of your organization. If dealing with governance issues, we can help you with that as a consulting engagement - eduardo@e-arroyo.com . 

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• If you are doing this on your own... start the same way... write down a few candidate mission statement and go through the above process on your own.

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Testing the Mission Statement

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Will your MISSION statement pass the questions below with BIG yes(es)? If all your answers are NOT a resounding YES, do some more work until you can HONESTLY do so!

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1. Does your mission statement reflects VALUE (a true benefit) that is easily recognized by a customer?

2. Is your mission statement quite unique, differentiated, when compared to organizations like yours, or it sounds quite generic?

3. Is it exciting, worth waking up in the morning for?

4. Has everyone on the Strategic Team agrees with the final product. Actually do a vocal round of yes or no's until an agreement or a decision is reached.

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If you passed the TEST, CONGRATULATIONS, you now have a SOLID Mission Statement!

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Now please type it in your INDIVIDUAL Strategic Framework Form.

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REMEMBER: Your STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK is your UNIQUE  URL (INTERNET) Address you where given when you first submitted the form, please DO NOT CREATE ANOTHER ONE! This same URL was also included on the email you received after creating and/or editing your STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK. This email is sent to you from "StratExec CLIENT Strategic Framework <noreply@123contactform.io>" and the URL is in the row called Submission Edit LINK.