Analyzing Your Corporate Mission

The concept of corporate mission is among the most debatable – if not outright controversial. Why? Because the mission of every organization (business, government, NGO, etc.) is the same. To satisfy the aggregate needs (financial, functional and emotional) of its stakeholders – owners, clients, employees, suppliers, partners, etc. to the fullest possible extent.

In other words, to create the maximum amount of aggregate value - financial, functional and emotional - for its stakeholders. First and foremost, obviously, for its shareholders – the ‘first among the equals’.

However, every business entity (or any organization, for that matter), is unique. Therefore, it objectively has its unique ‘universe of stakeholders’ and its own unique way to carry out this general mission. The way that is the best match to its history, corporate identity, key external factors, etc.

The problem is that both your ‘universe of stakeholders’ and your own unique way can – and often must – change over time to make sure your company achieves its strategic corporate objectives. Which are stable – like your core corporate identity (see above). Your corporate mission, however, is not an end – it is a means, a tool to achieve your corporate objectives and to express your corporate identity. And, therefore, variable.

Still, these changes seldom happen very often. Therefore, your corporate mission statement might very well be a valuable component of your corporate management system. Although whether your company needs a separate mission statement or it is better to include the ‘mission section’ into your corporate vision statement (see below) is still subject to debate.

Therefore, the following questions for analyzing your corporate mission statement are conditional (except the first one, of course). In other words, subject to objective necessity to have a separate corporate mission statement. In the latter case, you will probably need not one, but three mission statements: one-liner (corporate slogan); brief one-paragraph mission statement and a detailed mission statement (from one-half to one page).

Like your DCI (or any other corporate document, for that matter), your corporate mission statement must be comprehensive, well-structured, accurate, up-to-date and logically sound.

Corporate mission statement belongs to a select few of corporate documents (others being DCI, your corporate vision statement, corporate strategies statements and corporate UVP statements) that can (and must) provide a powerful motivational emotional impact on your workforce. Motivating your employees to maximize their individual performance, performance of workgroups and functional units and the aggregate performance of your company. Therefore, you must make sure, that this is, indeed, the case.

Your company may not have the declared (‘written’) corporate mission statement, but it always has the real, actual, ‘unwritten’ one. Which in many cases happens to deviate very far from the optimal. Therefore, you must always make sure that (a) you always have the right corporate mission statement and (b) your declared corporate mission always matches the real one.

As your corporate mission statement describes the unique way in which it satisfies the aggregate needs of your corporate stakeholders, it obviously must perfectly match their needs and desires. And no less obviously – your KEF and your Declaration of Corporate Identity.

As your mission statement inevitably has to change over time, you will definitely need a highly efficient process for making these changes.

Like DCI (or any other strategic corporate statement), your corporate mission statement by itself is useless. To be useful and valuable to your company it must be tightly integrated into your strategic and operational planning and overall decision-making – to make sure that every decision and action in your company brings you closer to achieving your strategic corporate objectives (see below). In other words, you need to develop and deploy a highly efficient corporate process of using your corporate mission statement in your strategic and operational management.