Developing Your Company’s Aspirations, Part 1

Mission statements are complex creatures whose origins and purposes are sometimes muddled.

Without a doubt, mission statements do have vital purposes within a company. In this clip, Erica Olsen, vice president of marketing for M3 Planning, opines on what a mission statement is supposed to accomplish, how it accomplishes this and how you can build a mission statement that will inspire and guide your organization.

At its core, a mission statement explains why your company exists. In the end, you should have a statement that is short, memorable and inspiring. And this can be crafted by incorporating the following three components:

People: Get input from different people in your company. Use this to articulate your mission statement.

Information: Gather as much information as possible on the topic of why your company exists.

Process: Use everything you’ve aggregated to fashion a well-prepared mission statement.

Lastly, to verify the quality of your mission statement, take the T-shirt test. Would your mission statement fit on a t-shirt? And if it did, would you wear it? And finally, would your employees wear it?

This is the first part in a three-part series intended to help develop your company’s many aspirations. Watch the rest of the videos to get a more detailed and comprehensive understanding about reaching your organizational goals.