2006 Winter/Spring Volume No. 6

How to Write a Mission Statement

Your mission statement is a promise to all the people who come into contact with your business, customers, employees, and end users. It should describe how you plan to do business and what should be expected by the people who work for you and by the people who use your service. It can (but doesn’t have to) include one or more sentences defining each of the Big 6 Best Practices our business strives to maintain:

MANAGEMENT • CUSTOMER SERVICE • MARKETING
CAPABILITIES • MONEY • PEOPLE

Try your hand at writing a mission statement for your company. Don’t worry if all the words don’t come to you right away. Some companies take months to draft their mission statement. Just take some scratch paper and try writing words and phrases that you want to include about each of the Big 6. Then gradually, with the help of all your employees, turn these phrases into sentences.

INCLUDE EMPLOYEE IDEAS & FEEDBACK
Be sure that everyone contributes and takes individual ownership of your company’s mission statement. If the people who will actually put it into practice really believe it, then your mission statement will have a strong positive effect on your company.