Missions and Mission Statements

A mission guides a person or an organization in the direction that it wishes to proceed. A personal mission statement can help focus one's goals and life. A mission is generally best articulated in a formal, written mission statement. An organization's mission statement is designed as a broadly phrased statement of the firm's long-term goals; it distinguishes the firm from others in its industry and specifies the scope of the operations in terms of the firm's product or market. It spells out goals, is a statement of aspirations, and focuses one's actions. The mission expresses the vision of the firm's founders or strategic planners and also communicates the image that they seek to project. It often also indicates the principal customer or client needs that the firm will satisfy. Thus, the mission statement describes the firm's products, services, market, customers needs, and technology such that it also reflects the values and goals of the top managers, and ideally all the members of the firm. The mission statement defines the firm's overall plan in a succinct and engaging manner and with a tone that reflects the climate of the business itself.

A mission statement seeks to answer the following questions: What is the problem or the need that the organization is trying to address? What makes this organization unique? Who benefits from the work of the organization? Why does this organization exist? What customer or client needs do we fulfill? What sets our organization apart from our competitors? A mission statement should be brief, clear, and concise; it should be short enough that it can be easily remembered by the people in the organization. A mission statement should also be inspiring, free of jargon, and achievable. Members of the organization must be able to support the mission.

Through the mission statement, the managers and associates in the firm attempt to clearly articulate their long-term goals and what makes their organization special and worthy of people's attention. A mission statement thus expresses the values of the members of the organization. A mission statement focuses the efforts of all in the organization so that all are more likely to be “on the same page”; this better enables the firm to survive and to achieve long-term profitability and growth. This statement can then serve as a basis for shared expectations, long-range planning, deciding priorities, and performance evaluations.

A mission statement that is developed systematically and is comprehensive is an invaluable tool in directing and implementing policy. A mission statement thus serves as a guide to top managers when they make strategic decisions on the deployment of the organization's resources. Without it a manager may make decisions on the basis of one's biases and concern for “turf.” A clearly stated mission statement enables a manager to focus on the long-range goals of the organization as a whole and not on the manager's particular priorities or preferences. Such a mission statement also provides a sense of shared expectations for people in the organization. It is important to give such guidance today, given global operations and people working in different countries and cultures. Thus, the mission statement specifies values and goals and provides a unity of direction that is intended to include many nations, peoples, and generations.

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