Mission statements are terrible

I once worked for an incredibly successful company called Kimberly Clark. A paper goods company that sells nappies and tissues. They dominated pretty much every category they sold products in. In my first year working there (it was my first job out of University) they had a conference to write a new mission statement for Australia. They invited people from all levels to participate. They ended up with this piece of dross:

“A shared vision to become world class growing through service quality and innovation”

I think I remember it because it is so bad.

I prefer the idea of making mantra. Just a couple of words that are about what we actually do. It should be closer to a tagline line, than a chapter from a text book. Some of the better ones I’ve heard of are below:

Manchester United = Theatre of dreams.

Coke = Within arm’s reach of desire.

Ripcurl = the Search.

I think the best mantras tell people why we exist, rather than what they pretend to promise.

Things to avoid include the word service or products, or best or anything that smells like an MBA wrote it.

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10 thoughts on “Mission statements are terrible

  1. I agree that vague mission statements give no direction to clients/customers and employees and are useless. Where as something that is well thought out and attainable has much more value, and can provide clients/customers and employees with a clear company vision. Additionally, if they are concise it’s a bonus.

  2. There are typos in all three (should be “Manchester”, “arm’s” and “Rip Curl”.

    I’ve always struggled with the mission/vision stuff, for the reason you hit upon with Kimberley Clark – that they tend toward the meaningless and jargon heavy. And too often they are the outcome of unnecessary consensus-building.

    Done well they can be uniting, however, especially if they ‘reach for the stars’. Collins and Porras were onto something when they said that visionary goals should be ‘Big, Hairy and Audacious’.

    How about these?

    ‘Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’
    ‘To become “the pulse of the planet.”‘
    ‘Democratize the automobile’
    ‘Change the worldwide image of Japanese products as poor quality’

    That’s Google, Twitter, Ford, Sony…

  3. A more accurate and fair title for this interesting article:
    “Poor Mission Statements are Terrible”

    I’ve seen plenty of very strong mission statements that are quite motivating, but I totally agree they are rare, and most of the time they are not worth the paper they are printed on.

  4. Love this post for 2 reasons Steve,
    a) My dad worked for Kimberly Clark here in Eastern Canada until it got sold off to another company (didn’t know they were in Australia as well).
    b) Love the short & sweet… I never really DID like the whole mission/vision statement thing… SO ethereal!!
    Cheers!
    Mike

  5. Good comments everyone. Craig:

    A more accurate and fair title for this interesting article:
    “Poor Mission Statements are Terrible”

    I’ve seen plenty of very strong mission statements that are quite motivating, but I totally agree they are rare, and most of the time they are not worth the paper they are printed on.

    I think your second paragraph kind of proves that most mission statements are terrible, and therefore in the interest of brevity, Steve’s original title stands 🙂

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