Mission Statement or Mantra: Which Do You Have?
By Deborah Chaddock Brown

Do you have a mission statement? What do you do with it? It is painted in your lobby, saved as a screen saver on your computer, tattooed on your arm? There are lots of opinions about the value mission statements offer to a company’s success. In Denise O’Berry’s posting “Do I Need a Mission Statement for My Small Business?” she says:

“The Sun Online Agency was commissioned to conduct a survey studying Fortune 1000 companies looking for trends over a 1 and 5 year period. The study was conducted through extensive online research along with a number of company interviews. Although 90% of the highest growth companies for 2006 had published mission statements, the most surprising difference was noted while looking at long-term growth over a 5-year period, where 98% of the 50 most profitable Fortune 1000 companies have mission statements in place.” http://www.allbusiness.com/operations/3357-1.html?postId=6984

I read that yesterday before heading to my monthly boardroom meeting of women business owners where the speaker proclaimed, “Mission statements are a bunch of hooey. They are just something to paint on the lobby wall.”

Talk about a vast difference. But I know what she meant. If a mission statement doesn’t have “legs,” if the employees don’t live and breathe the mission statement, than it is just a bunch of hot air.

I recall sitting in a meeting many years ago as a regional manager with Pearle Vision. We recently had a change in leadership (not uncommon during my 17 year tenure) on this particular occasion the new president came into the meeting to make a statement.