Organizational Mission Statements

Mission statements are also vital to successful organizations. One of the most important thrusts of

my work with organizations is to assist them in developing effective mission statements. And to be

effective, that statement has to come from within the bowels of the organization. Everyone should

participate in a meaningful way -- not just the top strategy planners, but everyone. Once again, the

involvement process is as important as the written product and is the key to its use.

I am always intrigued whenever I go to IBM and watch the training process there. Time and time

again, I see the leadership of the organization come into a group and say that IBM stands for three

things: the dignity of the individual, excellence, and service.

These things represent the belief system of IBM. Everything else will change, but these three things

will not change. Almost like osmosis, this belief system has spread throughout the entire organization, providing a tremendous base of shared values and personal security for everyone who works there.

Once I was training a group of people for IBM in New York. It was small group, about 20 people,

and one of them became ill. He called his wife in California, who expressed concern because his illness required a special treatment. The IBM people responsible for the training session arranged to have

him taken to an excellent hospital with medical specialists in the disease. But they could sense that his wife was uncertain and really wanted him home where their personal physician could handle the

problem.

So they decided to get him home. Concerned about the time involved in driving him to the airport

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart and waiting for a commercial plane, they brought in a helicopter, flew him to the airport, and hired a

special plane just to take this man to California.

I don't know what costs that involved; my guess would be many thousands of dollars. But IBM

believes in the dignity of the individual. That's what the company stands for. To those present, that experience represented its belief system and was no surprise. I was impressed.

At another time, I was scheduled to train 175 shopping center managers at a particular hotel. I was

amazed at the level of service there. It wasn't a cosmetic thing. It was evident at all levels,

spontaneously, without supervision.

I arrived quite late, checked in, and asked if room service were available. The man at the desk said,

"No, Mr. Covey, but if you're interested, I could go back and get a sandwich or a salad or whatever

you'd like that we have in the kitchen." His attitude was one of total concern about my comfort and

welfare. "Would you like to see your convention room?" he continued. "Do you have everything you need? What can I do for you? I'm here to serve you."

There was no supervisor there checking up. This man was sincere.

The next day I was in the middle of a presentation when I discovered that I didn't have all the

colored markers I needed. So I went out into the hall during the brief break and found a bellboy

running to another convention. "I've got a problem," I said. "I'm here training a group of managers and I only have a short break. I need some more colored pens.

He whipped around and almost came to attention. He glanced at my name tag and said, "Mr.

Covey, I will solve your problem."

He didn't say, "I don't know where to go" or "well, go and check the front desk." He just took care of it. And he made me feel like it was his privilege to do so.

Later, I was in the side lobby, looking at some of the art objects. Someone from the hotel came up

to me and said, "Mr. Covey, would you like to see a book that describes the art objects in this hotel?"

How anticipatory! How service-oriented!

I next observed one of the employees high up on a ladder cleaning windows in the lobby. From his

vantage point he saw a woman having a little difficulty in the garden with a walker. She hadn't really

fallen, and she was with other people. But he climbed down that ladder, went outside, helped the

woman into the lobby and saw that she was properly taken care of. Then he went back and finished

cleaning the windows.

I wanted to find out how this organization had created a culture where people bought so deeply into

the value of customer service. I interviewed housekeepers, waitresses, bellboys in that hotel and

found that this attitude had impregnated the minds, hearts, and attitudes of every employee there.

I went through the back door into the kitchen, where I saw the central value: "Uncompromising

personalized service." I finally went to the manager and said, "My business is helping organizations develop a powerful team character, a team culture. I am amazed at what you have here."

"Do you want to know the real key?" he inquired. He pulled out the mission statement for the hotel chain.

After reading it, I acknowledged, "That's an impressive statement. But I know many companies

that have impressive mission statements."

"Do you want to see the one for this hotel?" he asked.

"Do you mean you developed one just for this hotel?"

"Yes."

"Different from the one for the hotel chain?"

"Yes. It's in harmony with that statement, but this one pertains to our situation, our environment, our time." He handed me another paper.

"Who developed this mission statement?" I asked.

"Everybody," he replied.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart

"Everybody? Really, everybody?"

"Yes."

"Housekeepers?"

"Yes."

"Waitresses?"

"Yes."

"Desk clerks?"

"Yes. Do you want to see the mission statement written by the people who greeted you last night?"

He pulled out a mission statement that they, themselves, had written that was interwoven with all the

other mission statements. Everyone, at every level, was involved.

The mission statement for that hotel was the hub of a great wheel. It spawned the thoughtful, more

specialized mission statements of particular groups of employees. It was used as the criterion for

every decision that was made. It clarified what those people stood for -- how they related to the

customer, how they related to each other. It affected the style of the managers and the leaders. It

affected the compensation system. It affected the kind of people they recruited and how they trained

and developed them. Every aspect of that organization, essentially, was a function of that hub, that

mission statement.

I later visited another hotel in the same chain, and the first thing I did when I checked in was to ask

to see their mission statement, which they promptly gave me. At this hotel, I came to understand the

motto "Uncompromising personalized service" a little more.

For a three-day period, I watched every conceivable situation where service was called for. I

always found that service was delivered in a very impressive, excellent way. But it was always also

very personalized. For instance, in the swimming area I asked the attendant where the drinking

fountain was. He walked me to it.

But the thing that impressed me the very most was to see an employee, on his own, admit a mistake

to his boss. We ordered room service, and were told when it would be delivered to the room. On the

way to our room, the room service person spilled the hot chocolate, and it took a few extra minutes to

go back and change the linen on the tray and replace the drink. So the room service was about fifteen

minutes late, which was really not that important to us.

Nevertheless, the next morning the room service manager phoned us to apologize and invited us to

have either the buffet breakfast or a room service breakfast, compliments of the hotel, to in some way

compensate for the inconvenience.

What does it say about the culture of an organization when an employee admits his own mistake,

unknown to anyone else, to the manager so that customer or guest is better taken care of!

As I told the manager of the first hotel I visited, I know a lot of companies with impressive mission

statements. But there is a real difference, all the difference in the world, in the effectiveness of a

mission statement created by everyone involved in the organization and one written by a few top

executives behind a mahogany wall.

One of the fundamental problems in organizations, including families, is that people are not

committed to the determinations of other people for their lives. They simply don't buy into them.

Many times as I work with organizations, I find people whose goals are totally different from the

goals of the enterprise. I commonly find reward systems completely out of alignment with stated

value systems.

When I begin work with companies that have already developed some kind of mission statement, I

ask them, "How many of the people here know that you have a mission statement? How many of you

know what it contains? How many were involved in creating it? How many really buy into it and use it

as your frame of reference in making decisions?"

Without involvement, there is no commitment. Mark it down, asterisk it, circle it, underline it.

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE Brought to you by FlyHeart No involvement, no commitment.

Now, in the early stages -- when a person is new to an organization or when a child in the family is

young -- you can pretty well give them a goal and they'll buy it, particularly if the relationship,

orientation, and training are good.

But when people become more mature and their own lives take on a separate meaning, they want

involvement, significant involvement. And if they don't have that involvement, they don't buy it.

Then you have a significant motivational problem which cannot be solved at the same level of thinking

that created it.

That's why creating an organizational mission statement takes time, patience, involvement, skill, and

empathy. Again, it's not a quick fix. It takes time and sincerity, correct principles, and the courage and integrity to align systems, structure, and management style to the shared vision and values. But

it's based on correct principles and it works.

An organizational mission statement -- one that truly reflects the deep shared vision and values of

everyone within that organization -- creates a great unity and tremendous commitment. It creates in

people's hearts and minds a frame of reference, a set of criteria or guidelines, by which they will govern themselves. They don't need someone else directing, controlling, criticizing, or taking cheap shots.

They have bought into the changeless core of what the organization is about.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 918