Your Employees Love Their Job? That’s Not Enough
Give Them a Reason to Love Your Customers
It's time for the Strategic Tools column. You can listen to the audio version of the article or read the text below.
One of the biggest misconceptions in management is believing that employees work for a company.
This is like thinking that the citizens of a country work for its government.
Managers who believe they are bosses are definitely stuck in the past. Buy them a new calendar.
A company, or its management, represents the minority that should create enough value for the majority – its employees – so that it can capture significant value from them.
And a clear, inspiring mission statement may be of much help here.
A great mission statement gives employees a reason to invest their time and energy in creating value for people whom they will hardly meet.
Few managers know what a mission statement is and how to craft it. In this article, we'll break down how to write a great mission statement.
A Piece of Plastic and a Life’s Purpose
"The difference between goals and mission is reflected in the difference between ‘I want to get married’ and ‘I want to have a successful marriage.’"Author unknown.
In 2011, I was the CEO of a manufacturing company. We produced vinyl siding, an affordable material for finishing country houses' exterior walls.
It was December, and I was preparing a festive speech for the Christmas party. At first, it seemed that I lost inspiration. All that popped into my head were cliches like, "We've worked so hard, let's have some fun."
But then, two ideas came to my mind:
1. The town in which our plant was located had 250,000 people. And approximately 250,000 families covered the walls of their houses with our products that year.
2. That summer, we organized a contest for consumers. They sent us photos of themselves standing in front of their houses, which were covered with our vinyl siding. All the pictures were heartwarming. People were smiling and hugging their family members, including children and dogs. They looked happy.
Two days later, I took the stage in our conference hall feeling like Steve Jobs presenting the first iPhone. Behind me was a big screen with photos of our customers rotating in a slideshow. In front of me sat 400 employees.
I said something like: “250 thousand families, which is as many as the number of people in our town, bought our products, improved the quality of their lives, and received positive emotions this year. It happened because you worked so hard. Look at their happy faces!”
Nobody was looking at me. The employees were looking at the screen, and their faces lit up with the thrill of a wonderful discovery.
I had the epiphany that night.
The thrill of the 'aha moment' was only slightly spoiled by the feeling that I could've figured it out sooner. People send spaceships to the moon, yet sometimes can't see what's right under their noses.
My employees weren’t idiots. They knew what vinyl siding was and what it was used for. Many of them had even bought it for themselves from our factory. But they had never looked consumers in the eye; they had never met them.
They didn't realize for whom they worked. It was my mistake, but now I knew how to fix it.
What do you need from your employees?
You don’t need employees who love their job. You need employees who love your customers.
A mission statement isn’t something that’s gathering dust on your website.
You don’t write a mission statement (MS) for your customers, investors, or shareholders. They couldn’t care less.
Do you ever read a company’s mission statement before you buy a smartphone or a purse from them?
The only purpose of an MS is to give your employees a reason to jump out of bed every morning and rush to work. It is a tool for internal communication.
It's how you tell your employees the meaning of their work. It answers that all-important ‘why’ question, so overused by many business gurus.
An MS is a bedrock for your strategy. You can’t craft a strategy if you don’t have a working mission statement.
Actually, a mission statement consists of four questions.
Four questions
"Make your life a mission - not an intermission." Arnold H. Glasgow, American psychologist
A mission statement answers four questions:
1. Who do we work for? Who are our customers, and why?
2. What do we give them? What value do we create for them?
3. What makes us special? Why can we deliver more value for our customers than others?
4. Why is delivering this value so important to us? What do we want to change for the better in the world?
Here is an example of a working mission statement:
“We work for mothers. We help them take good care of their babies with our one-of-a-kind developmental toys that can entertain and educate small children. Our unique products are so entertaining that while kids are playing with them, their moms can carve a moment to relax or attend to other duties.
Our exceptional corporate culture and the spirit of innovation make our product unparalleled.
We work hard so moms worldwide can be proud of their smart children.”
If you feel that your employees are just collecting a paycheck, it is only because you haven’t given them a reason to act differently.
Check out my book Red and Yellow Strategies: Flip Your Strategic Thinking and Overcome Short-termism here.
Pro Tips
1. A mission statement isn’t a slogan. It shouldn’t be short or punchy.
2. Only two factors differentiate a good MS from a bad one. First, your employees should understand your MS. Second, it must inspire them.
3. An MS is always about people. Your employees can’t create value for ‘organizations,’ even if you work in B2B. People can only get inspired if they help other people.
4. Mission statement isn’t about what you would like to be in the future. You have a vision for that. An MS is about who you are today and why you do what you do.
If it pisses you off that your staffers are just clock-watching and don’t work hard, ask yourself: “What have I offered them in return?”
If you need help with your missions statement, just let me know, I’ll be happy to assist.
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Read also: Yahoo!, Focused Strategy, and Magical Thinking: What We Can Learn from Yahoo's Failure
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It’s an important point as it links up with your Why, and what you do
(btw it’s never too late to craft one)
Highlighting the connection between what someone does at work and how it helps or delights the customer is gold. And you're right - it's not always clear to people. Then they are just turning the handle for a pay check.