You've seen them mocked in the pages of
Dilbert. You've seen
them criticized on the Simpsons, and unable to understand
thanks to Enron and World-Com. All that said, I've got a shocker
for you: Mission Statements can actually be worthwhile.
I will explain.
In his book
On What Leaders Really Do,
author John P. Kotter points out that leaders do three fundamental things: They create a common culture, create a shared vision, and they
inspire. Mission statements, then, are simply a method of communicating that vision to an entire department or company.
Think that isn't important? Imagine if a manager at Marshall Fields or Cadillac tried to compete, head-to-head against wall-mart or
Kia based on price. The company would fail - plain and simple. Luckily, both of those companies have a vision and culture that is crystal
clear: only a fool could mis-understand them. (In the same vein, Wal-Mart and Kia don't try to charge a premium price, because it's in direct
contrast to the companies strategy.)
The thing about software companies, especially new ones, is that they don't have the established reputation that these
old-line retailers do. The company may have products or services to sell, but on a nearly dailey basis, a manager is going to get tasked with deciding
"do we do this or that?"
The company could just make it's decision ad-hoc - in which case there is no strategy. It could have a single
decision maker/super-guru that creates a single vision, but, as the company grows, eventually, it's going to have to communicate it's plan.
That's where the mission statement comes in.
I will give a few examples:
Good Vision #1:
"DataAnyWhere, Inc. provides data conversion, manipulation, and reporting tools for small and medium (<500 employees)
while building a generic toolset, which may eventually become a commercial application." DataAnyWhere, Inc. will focus
on accurate software that ships on-time and under-budget."
Good Vision #2:
"eMallOnline provides complete e-commerce solutions for small businesses. eMallOnline software developers use eMallOnline's
shopping mall software to create web-pages that are hosted on the server, and customers enter products through
eMallOnline's stock-entry browser software. Customers may also fund customization, which is rolled into the eMallOnline.com Shopping Mall
Software. Because of the customer, YCo focuses on cost-effective, all-in-one solutions that are
competitivly priced.
A Terrible Vision
"Synergistic StuffWare is a world-class client-services organization that specializes in
developing low-cost solutions that ship on-time, under-budget, complete, high quality, while
maximizing shareholder value, customer satisfaction, and employee morale."
See the difference here? Let's say the company is bidding on a project that
is high-risk. A DataAnyWhere project manager might charge extra for the risk, because low-cost isn't part
of the vision, but on-time and under-budget is. An eMallOnline project manager might pass up on the project,
because the low-bid nature of the company doesn't work when over-runs are possible. A company Synergistic StuffWare
project manager has no guidance at all from the mission statement.
In the same sense, when offered a choice between a web project and an data-mining
project, the DataAnyWhere and eMallOnline managers know what to do. The Synergistic manager has no guidance at all from the mission
statement. In fact, most of the missions of Synergistic are conflicts of interest! Low-Cost solutions are generally
not profitable. What about when the project is late and the developers are putting in overtime that is
unhealthy? Does the Synergistic project manager send them home? He doesn't know
In fact, often, software is a tradeoff between time, money, features, and quality. When writing the mission
statement, Synergistic's management refused to prioritize the four, and also refused to create a meaningful
stategy. The results are predictable: Management of Synergistic will not be able to make consistent decisions,
and certainly won't build a common culture, shared vision, or inspire anyone.
Synergistic StuffWare is in trouble. Don't let Synergistic StuffWare be you.