Mission Statements

John W. Graham, Wendy C. Havlick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1994
• eBook ISBN: 9781135582906
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

First published in 1994. Mission Statements: A Guide to the Corporate and Nonprofit Sectors offers the most exciting opportunities for advancing the study of organization direction in the four decades that it has been actively pursued. The study of missions of organizations has remained on the "back burner" of scholarly pursuits because of the great difficulty that researchers have faced in gathering appropriate formal statements from corporations and nonprofit organizations. As a result, the importance of missions to distinguish among organizations and to guide the development and execution of implementing strategies has become a nearly universally endorsed but unenthusiastically practiced element in organizational planning activities. This information laden new book by John Graham and Wendy Havlick invites managers and academic researchers to undertake the study of missions with greater expectations that much can be learned about the organizations, their leaders, and their strategies through a comprehensive assessment of their written statements of values and priorities.

PART I

Introduction

Writing a mission statement means stating the purpose of a corporation or nonprofit organization. This statement may be a brief line-of-business description or it may even be expanded to include the goals, aspirations, and beliefs of a particular organization. Defining a mission in writing is one element in the larger context of strategic management. Proper strategic management includes defining long-range objectives, motivating employees to work toward these objectives, organizing work to reach these goals, and evaluating performance along the way. This introductory section to Mission Statements: A Guide to the Corporate and Nonprofit Sectors is a concise look at the mission statement document. Defining what a mission statement is, exploring the history of this document, drafting one for a particular organization, and looking at the future of this important document is the mission of this introductory section.

Definition and History

What exactly is a mission statement? No clear and easily stated answer exists to this question. Exactly 622 mission statements are included in this book, and no two follow the same exact format, formula, or pattern. Length and language vary, as well. Numerous articles and several books have been written about mission statements, and few of them state a rigorous or precise definition of what this document is. Thomas Falsey’s Corporate Philosophies and Mission Statements does not offer a concise definition of a mission statement; instead it illustrates commonly included elements in separate chapters.¹ A Sense of Mission by Andrew Campbell and Laura L. Nash devotes its entire first chapter to answering the question, What is a mission?²

Nevertheless, experts in the field and examples from this book reveal many common elements for any mission statement. A mission statement should include many or most of these elements: a statement of purpose for the organization, indication of line of business or specialty, geographic parameters, and mention of important groups in the organization’s life, such as employees and shareholders. Perhaps the best concise definition comes from a landmark 1982 article by John A.Pearce II in the Sloan Management Review.³ He writes:

The company mission is a broadly defined but enduring statement of purpose that distinguishes a business from other firms of its type but identifies the scope of its operations in product and market terms. Not only does the company mission embody strategic decision makers’ business philosophy, but it also reveals the image the company seeks to project, reflects the firm’s self-concept, and indicates the principal product or service areas and the primary customer needs the company will attempt to satisfy. In short, the company mission describes the firm’s product, market, and technology in a way that reflects the values and priorities of the strategic decision makers.

Company mission statements come with a variety of names, as the entries in this book reveal. Organizations may label their mission statement a “creed,” “values,” “purpose,” “vision,” “beliefs,” or “objectives.” Regardless of the names, most fit our basic definition of a mission statement. For the purpose of inclusion in this book, we included a statement, regardless of its name, if it contained the elements listed above. It was also included if the organization that provided it said it was indeed their mission statement.

In the broadest sense, there probably can never be an overall, concise definition or format for all mission statements. The goals of a wheat cooperative in Alberta and a software company in the Silicon Valley are quite different, and these differences will be reflected not only in the language but also in the layout of their missions. Ideally, the mission statement should spring from values and beliefs already at work in an organization. A company should not have to invent its basic values at the same time it sets out to create its mission statement document.

Mission statements, at first glance, may appear to be yet another management fad. Most of the statements included in this book were drafted in the last few years; some were written just weeks or even days before we solicited a statement. An accompanying explosion of mission statement literature is also underway, with books, studies, and popular articles appearing almost weekly. Consultant Dan Thomas, in his new book Business Sense, proclaims “mission statements have become a management rage in the late 1980s and early 1990s.”⁴ While writing a corporate document labeled a mission statement may be new, recording the purpose and objectives of an organization certainly is not.

Company and nonprofit mission statements in one form or another have been around for most of the twentieth century. In fact, if a broad enough definition of a mission statement is included, this document is a centuries-old idea. James K.Brown, in his article “Corporate Soul-Searching,” cites the 1636 mission of Harvard College and the phrase “E Pluribus Unum” as early examples.⁵ Most early corporate mission statements usually express thoughts from the company’s founder, and these documents remain surprisingly fresh and modern today. Some of this language is even included in some companies’ current statements. Early examples include Cooper Tire, 1916 (Entry number 161); Kellogg Company (326); Medtronic, Inc., 1960 (369) or the well-known and widely reproduced Johnson & Johnson Creed (319).

An excellent and quite typical example is the mission statement from Leo Burnett Company, Inc. (338). Leo Burnett is a major advertising agency based in Chicago. Its mission statement dates from 1955 and is composed mostly of words from Leo Burnett himself. In part it reads, “our primary function in life is to produce the best advertising in the world, bar none.” When reproduced on the company’s stationery with the firm’s famous “reach for the stars” logo, it provides a powerful and direct message to employees almost forty years after those words were written.

Creation of the Mission Statement

How does one go about writing a mission statement for a company or nonprofit organization? Just as when one tries to define what a mission statement is, there is probably no one “right” way to do it. Some mission statements in this book are the words of the company’s founder, often written in a direct if untutored style. Others are the work of internal committees, and they often contain drab and uninspiring prose. Some organizations solicit employee input before writing or rewriting their statements; Michigan Consolidated Gas Company (376) went to the rather extraordinary step of obtaining comments from over 2,600 employees—75 percent of its work force—before its last mission statement revision.

A mission statement contains the strategic intent and business direction for an organization. As such, it conveys the ideas and plans of top management. Neither janitors nor public relations executives set policy for any organization; that is the job of top executives and boards of directors. Therefore, the first step in writing or revising any mission statement document is getting the full support of top management. This support could mean either specific language or concepts and ideas the mission statement should include.

Other steps follow. Based on an extensive review of the literature and discussion with several people who have developed mission statements, we believe writing a mission statement involves five steps after securing management approval for this task. The first step is to gather as much information about the organization and its goals as possible. Ideally this includes not only reviewing company documents and plans but also seeking real and meaningful input from employees. The second step is to produce a rough outline of the proposed mission statement. The next step is to get feedback on this draft. Feedback should come both from top management and lower level employees. Seeking employee input is important. While management sets strategy, employees must understand what this strategy is if they are to implement it. Involving employees in the process of shaping the identity and direction of the organization provides the employees with a sense of ownership as well. After receiving feedback, the fourth step is to revise the mission statement. This includes not only tinkering with the language but considering layout and format. Getting management approval and support is the final step in the process.

Yet writing a mission statement is more than simply following a set pattern or formula. This book is written to help those drafting mission statements to have a pattern to follow, but no one pattern will fit all companies or nonprofit organizations. Managers and employees will need to make up their own minds as to what their own organization’s mission statement will look like. Some organizations take the phrase mission “statement” literally, producing a one-sentence statement. Other organizations decide on a longer document, with sections to encompass all those touched by corporate activities. The final length and format of the statement should be determined not by examples in this book but by what the organization wants to say and how it wants to say it.

Three additional factors need to be considered in writing a mission statement. They should be considered in ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• PART I
• PART II