By Jim Champagne
Mission statements should be written by either the owner of the company or senior management. Mission statements should not be a series of vague proclamations about how you want to help customers or treat people well. These are all expected and requited for entering the game. This would be like an airline saying their mission is to get you to your destination safely. Mission statements should also have clear concise and attainable goals that can be understood by the organization and can be acted upon by employees. Things like, “Our goal is to produce the highest quality tools and become the leading distributor in the automotive repair industry” is a pretty specific mission.
It is also critical that each person in the company knows the mission statement and understands how his or her job fits into the company’s mission. For example, the line employee who is responsible for maintaining the machine that puts the bolt in the adjustable pliers knows that if they are not torqued properly they might fail. While this might not be exactly how pliers are manufactured, the point is that each employee considers the ramifications of what they do every day and how it either helps or hinders the company from achieving its mission.
Achievement Resources specializes in organizational development including employee training and development, executive and management coaching and training, assessments and organizational consulting.
