A mission is a powerful goal with purpose and meaning behind it. I have spoken about the importance of making goals and writing them down. Now I will discuss the role of a mission or mission statement.
The mission statement is a beautiful thing since once it is created, it can make many of your decisions for you. Think of it as a complicated math equation where there are tons of unknowns or variables throughout but the one number that you do have is what it all equals. Your equation is _______ + _______ = Your Mission. It can be a lot more complicated than a simple addition equation but you get the point. If the elements don’t fit to equal your mission, then don’t do it.
Think of any successful business and you will see that they have a mission. Whether it is Jet Blue with the mission “to provide comfortable, friendly travel and low fares” or Nike who strives “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”
When Jet Blue wants to add a service, all they have to do is ask themselves, “does this fit into our mission?” They will not add something that does not fit into their mission such as flights with high fares. They try and make everything as simple as possible so that people are always comfortable.
Nike was able to grow from making shoes to every type of sports equipment you can imagine because they are trying to inspire. If their mission was “to make quality shoes”, they would never have grown to what they are today. Just recently, they worked with Apple to come out with sports equipment that is compatible with the ipod.
The most important part of a business is the mission and the business should be built around it. Every employee of the business should know the mission and be able to make day to day decisions based on what fits into the mission statement.