Insanity: The Corporate Mission Statement
For 25 years, Acme Industrial Machine Tool Company had been remarkably successful. Sales grew almost every year, we regularly exceeded our revenue goals, management worked well together and—believe it or not—departments actually communicated.
We had assembled a good team, people knew their jobs and the company ran like a well-oiled machine.
Obviously, something had to be done about that.
It Started at a Conference
Our CEO attended the annual Industrial Machine Tool Association Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.
You know these conferences. Educational sessions mixed in with golf, tennis, pools, spas, cocktail hours and expensive dinners.
Most attendees claimed they were there to learn about the latest industry trends. Others saw it as an opportunity to get away from the office, screaming kids and the spouse for a long weekend subsidized by the IRS.
Our CEO made the mistake of actually attending one of the educational sessions:
The Steps to Developing Your Corporate Mission Statement.
The presenter was a consultant and, naturally, a world-renowned expert on corporate mission statements. He had charts, impressive credentials, testimonials and, most importantly, business cards.
Our CEO brought one home and made the call
Let the games begin.
Apparently, We Didn’t Know Why We Were in Business
The consultant arrived and spent several days interviewing management and touring the company. He wanted to know who we were, what we did, why we did it, where we were going, who our customers were and what made us different.
These were apparently questions we had neglected to ask during our first 25 successful years.
Soon we were discussing paradigms, synergies, core competencies, customer touchpoints and stakeholders.
I never quite understood stakeholders.
I thought they were the guys directing traffic at construction sites.
Eventually, the consultant presented his plan to help us discover our corporate purpose.
$75,000. Plus expenses.
For $75,000, we were finally going to discover why we existed.
Mission Statement Day
More than 100 employees were summoned to a local convention hotel and divided into teams. The room was filled with flip charts, easels, markers, index cards, masking tape and enough Post-it notes to wallpaper Rhode Island.
The consultant explained that we were about to embark on a journey to discover our corporate purpose.
He started with a seemingly simple question:
Why does Acme exist?
“To make machine tools.”
Apparently wrong.
“To sell machine tools.”
Also wrong.
“To make money.”
Definitely wrong.
It turned out we weren’t actually selling machine tools. We were providing solutions, experiences, relationships and value.
Who knew?
For 25 years we’d been foolishly shipping machinery.
Creating the Masterpiece
Each table was instructed to develop its own ideas for a Mission Statement.
That’s when normal English disappeared.
People who had arrived that morning speaking perfectly understandable sentences were suddenly talking about empowering employees, leveraging technology, embracing innovation and maximizing stakeholder value.
Someone suggested we needed to “synergize our core competencies.”
I wasn’t sure whether that was legal.
The consultant loved it.
At the end of the day, he collected our flip charts, Post-it notes and accumulated corporate wisdom. Then came more meetings, drafts and revisions.
Should we say customers or business partners? Improve or optimize? Work together or collaborate?
Apparently, civilization hung in the balance.
Finally, after months of work and $75,000, the CEO called everyone together.
This was it.
He proudly unveiled our new Corporate Mission Statement:
“Our mission is to dynamically synergize next-generation paradigms, empowering disruptive ideation to holistically optimize consumer touchpoints and to develop a successful aforementioned entity with honesty, integrity and collaborative partnerships with customers, employees, suppliers, leadership and our stakeholders.”
There it was.
After 25 years, we finally knew why we existed.
I still didn’t know what an “aforementioned entity” was.
Living the Mission
Every employee received a laminated wallet-sized card containing the Mission Statement. The CEO encouraged us to carry it, read it every morning and use it as a guide when making our daily decisions.
A huge, heavy plaque containing the statement was mounted prominently on the wall behind the receptionist. Customers, suppliers and visitors couldn’t enter the building without seeing what Acme stood for.
It was impressive.
For about a month.
Then Christmas arrived.
Someone hung a wreath on the plaque. Garland and ornaments followed. Before long, you couldn’t read our $75,000 Mission Statement without moving Santa Claus. It also proved valuable in decorating all holidays.
The plaque also turned out to be a convenient place to hang coats.
The laminated cards found even more practical uses. Employees used them to scrape ice off windshields, remove dried coffee from desks and occasionally pick lunch out of their teeth.
Apparently, we had finally found some tangible benefits from the Mission Statement.
Meanwhile, Acme kept doing what it had been doing for the previous 25 years: selling machine tools, taking care of customers and making money.
In our 26th year, we more than achieved our annual revenue goal, continuing our long record of growth.
There was only one problem.
Our net income came in $75,000 below forecast.
Go figure.
You Cant Make this stuff up 