If you’ve spent any time around commercial companies since the early 1990s you’ve probably seen at least one mission statement; either at the front of an employee handbook, appended to an annual report, carefully explained to a business reporter, or incised in granite and gold leaf on the wall in their reception area. Some of these are incredibly elaborate, taking up several pages or at least hundreds of words, and most of them don’t actually say anything. Scott Adams, of “Dilbert” fame, once pulled a prank on some business leaders in San Francisco where he pretended to be a business consultant, and had them spend all afternoon writing a new mission for the company that was nothing more than a collection of buzzwords and jargon. That they didn’t recognize him is understandable – he’s a cartoonist, not a television star – but the fact that not one of them caught on to the fact that it was a prank (and that the “mission statement” they were producing was nonsense) is less so. The fact that you could probably repeat this experiment in most of the major companies in America and get identical results probably goes a long way toward explaining the decline of American enterprise, but it doesn’t affect you or your new business plan…
The fact is, a mission statement is simply the answer to a question – and the question is, “What are we doing here?” So, for example, if our new business makes lawn frogs (like a lawn gnome, only it’s a frog), our mission statement might be: “We will make the world’s highest quality lawn frog, at a price that any working person can afford.” Sounds a little silly, doesn’t it? Well, before you laugh, consider that it’s almost a word-for-word paraphrase of Henry Ford’s famous mission statement for Ford Motor Company – except that he was talking about cars instead of ceramic frogs. There’s some debate about exactly how long these declarations should be, but I’ve always felt that if you can’t tell me what you are trying to accomplish by founding this enterprise in a sentence or two, you probably need to refine the concept before you go any farther…
Once you’ve got your mission figured out, you might want to consider working on a vision statement for the company, as well. This is also the answer to a question, and the question here is “Why are we doing this?” Or, in the case of our lawn statuary example, “Why, out of all of the things we might have chosen to do with our lives, our fortunes, and the trust of our investors, have we chosen to make ceramic models of frogs pushing wheelbarrows?” As with the mission statement, it’s a reasonable question. Very few business ventures are so simple and logical and necessary that no one ever questions why they exist, and yours probably won’t be, either, but one assumes that you have a reason for doing what you’re going to do – beyond “To make a lot of money,” which is generally understood. In the case of our lawn statuary example, our vision statement might be: “For too long, the best quality lawn frogs have been beyond the reach of all but the wealthiest members of society. We’re going to change all of that – we’re going to make it possible for any suburban family or gardener to feature well-made, attractive lawn frogs in front of their home or business.” Again, this might seem silly – but it’s a paraphrase of several early comments made by Apple Computers, back in the 1970’s…
Nearly all of my students, and all of my consulting clients, have asked me if you have to include a mission statement or a vision statement (or both) in the introduction to your business plan, as if there was some government regulation about the minimum requirements for such documents. I’ve always responded that you don’t have to put anything in a business plan unless you want to, and you certainly don’t have to explain the mission or vision your new company intends to follow if you don’t want to. But you should still take the time to work these things out in advance, because even if you don’t decide to share them with potential investors, YOU still need to know the answers to these very basic questions…
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