I’ve been giving a fair amount of consideration to mission statements lately, and the impact they have on the bottom line.  On the one hand, I’d like to say that they tend to be too general and not influential enough on the day to day performance of a company.  On the other hand, I realize that a carefully crafted mission statement can make an enormous difference in the unity of your employees and the strategic direction of the Company as a whole.

If your mission is something really long and vague, like  “Our mission is to create a friendly work environment where our employees work hard to ensure that our clients are satisfied with our products and that our customer service is great.”, then you aren’t really helping yourself or your employees to drive in any particular direction.  There’s no real world application to a statement like that – no way to measure its effectiveness.

On the other hand, take a look at some really great mission statements:

Google: "To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Walt Disney: "To make people happy."

Western Union: “the fastest way to send money worldwide”

A mission statement doesn’t need to be long, and it doesn’t need to capture every aspect of your business.  It just needs to speak to the heart of the company – the power that drives success.  If all of your employees are working toward a common goal (like making people happy) and it’s front of mind, then their behaviors and decisions are much more likely to align with the vision of success the owner has for the company. 

If Disney’s mission was to produce great movies for kids, or build amazing theme parks, or the like, they might have missed the mark in terms of the consumer reaction to their products.  By focusing on making people happy, they actually have greater flexibility to engage in multiple revenue streams, channels, geographies, etc.

So as you begin to consider who you are and who you want to be in 2011 and beyond, your mission statement might just be the right place to start.  It might even be the driving force behind your future successes.