Mission statement — typical mistakes

Does your mission statement do its job?

Does your mission statement do its job?

Many years ago, I was a relatively young CEO of a large company manufacturing exterior wall cladding materials. Once (it was the end of December), I was preparing for the annual Christmas party, where I, as the company’s leader, had to deliver a speech. I intended to say something inspiring and aspirational, considering that the outgoing year was exceptionally successful for the firm. But inspiration abandoned me — all I could come up with were banalities such as “we have worked hard, and that’s why we succeeded.” It sounded boring and primitive.

Then I remembered that our marketing department had run an advertising campaign during the summer season that year. Customers who used our materials to decorate their houses’ walls were invited to send us pictures of themselves taken in front of the houses. We received many photos with our end customers’ smiling faces but didn’t use them for internal communications. So I decided to employ them to illustra…