Why Corporate Mission Statements Still Matter

Ingrained in the word mission is a certain patience and commitment. A meaningful action is rarely a short-term effort. Even the famed Mission: Impossible franchise has been releasing movies for over 25 years. Missions are unending.

This provides an interesting perspective on the value and importance of a corporate mission statement. This guiding principle will live longer than we anticipate, affecting the actions of those who will eventually join your company, some of whom are yet to be born.

What a Mission Statement is Not

A relic.

A throwback to a sentimental age.

Mission statements are not corporate wallpaper—framed, forgotten, and mostly ignored. They are not requisite phrases that simply prove a company is real, like the dust-covered business license on your wall. To the contrary, these statements are qualitative and nearly prophetic.

In 2006, Disney simplified its mission statement to include three powerful words, “Make People Happy.” Isn’t it interesting how this statement continues to come true all over the world, from its theme parks to movies and cartoons? Your mission is never about you. It is about what you will cause in the lives of others.

Are Mission Statements Relevant Today?

In our instant, TikTok-Instagram world, mission statements are more important now than ever. When everything moves fast, fast becomes less valuable. Mission statements, when written and expressed with clarity and meaning, have the effect of slowing us down, permitting us to fish within, surfacing our best ideas. However, mission statements must evolve.

The modern mission statement can’t be platitudes written during a corporate retreat weekend in the mountains. Instead, it must represent the place where the thinking behind all strategies and corporate endeavors is authorized.

Here are three steps your company can take in order to build your mission statement into your north star.

1. Your Mission Statement Must Say What Technology Can’t Do

Machines can process, predict, and optimize. But they cannot hope. They cannot yearn. They cannot instill purpose. If your company’s mission statement does not stir the souls of your people, your people will never stir the souls of your customers. Make sure your language does more than inspire—it must provoke.

2. Your Mission Statement Must Cultivate Conscience

The statement must represent your company’s moral GPS. It must be a combination of aspiration and dedication. It should point to not just who you are today, but who you are committed to being in the future.

3. Your Mission Statement Must Be an Invitation

Your potential workforce today isn’t looking for a job—they’re looking to belong. If you don’t offer them purpose, they will leave you for a company that does. Or they’ll become entrepreneurial and build their own cathedral within yours.

Don’t write your statement as if it’s for compliance. Write it as an invitation in your corporate fellowship. Write it as something bigger than any one purpose. Bigger than profit and bigger than brand. It should feel more like scripture than Wall Street—and more accountable than generic.

All I am saying is, become thoughtful about the language and the sentiment behind it. Your mission statement is a sacred promise—a promise about who you will serve and how you will serve them. If you can’t lead people with a sentence, you don’t deserve to lead them with a strategy. If you can’t name what your company lives and dies for, don’t be surprised when your talent lives and dies somewhere else.

So go back to that dusty frame on the wall. Wipe off the glass. Look hard. Then take a pen, and begin again.