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an exciting vision to be successful. You must also create value. You communicate your value proposition through a Mission Statement.
Mission statements function as advertisements for your customers. They should communicate your unique value proposition for your targeted customer. The value proposition must be differentiated and compelling.
The Hedgehog Concept
When working on defining your mission, a key paradigm to keep top of mind is the Jim Collins Hedgehog Concept metaphor. The basic premise of the Hedgehog Concept (see “Good to Great” for an in-depth discussion) is that if want your business to excel vs. exist, you must define a mission in the context of the following test.
Where can you carve out a piece of the market that perfectly hits the bull’s-eye of the intersection of the following three constraints?
1. Where do you have the opportunity to become THE BEST?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What does the marketplace value?
This therefore creates an acid teat that you can double back to and determine if your mission statement is a winner. If you can’t be the best at the core commercial purpose as defined in your mission statement, you are wasting the limited resources of business oxygen that could be better allocated to other endeavors either by you or someone else.
If you are not deeply, truly, honestly passionate about your mission, you will fail to achieve optimal results. If you are not going to be able to achieve the best results, what is the point in even trying? This life is too short. Use it wisely on something you can be deeply proud of accomplishing.
Passion is a critical element because a business is simply too hard day to day to keep your strength if you are running on anything else other than pure passion. I know this for a fact as I have worked in the business world in many capacities. I started my career in an international accounting firm. I left that firm and become the sole proprietor of a small CPA firm. I then was a partner in a small CPA firm. We then merged our firm into a large local CPA Firm. I now work as part of an executive team in my first venture into the real word outside of the public accounting service industry.
All of my above experience has had one common denominator; it has been difficult day to day and hour to hour. I continue to be amazed at what all can happen in one business day to sap your strength and rob your joy. Passion is the essential ingredient that keeps you forging ahead to accomplish you mission and ultimately achieve your vision.
You simply must be passionate about what you do, who you do it for and who you do it with or your work life will not produce the fruit of enlightenment.
Lastly, Stephen Covey always points out that we can never forget that even with all of the good intentions of being the best plus the benefit of being passionate etc, that no margin = no mission.
If there is not an economic model for your organization that will reward all of the stakeholders from the customers, to the team members, the vendors, stockholders and the community at large, there is no purpose in getting started or continuing on. There is an absolute unconditional guarantee that your efforts will fail in this 21st century flat world if there is not a sufficient profit model for your business.
Voice
Stephen Covey takes Jim Collins’ hedgehog metaphor to the next logical level with his “Voice” concept in his 8th habit book. The subtitle for the book is “From Effectiveness to Greatness”. It essentially provides a link from the 7 Habits to the 8th habit.
He, like Collins recognizes that we sell ourselves short if we do not shoot for individual and organizational greatness. He defines “voice” as unique personal significance. He frames a purpose filled life by quoting The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find your self in a new, great and wonderful world.
The premise of the book is that the key to success in the 21st century is going to be knowledge worker productivity. To maximize this measure, he describes the whole person model.
This model says that all of us desire to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy. Essentially, we want an existence that engages all of our senses, our mind, body, heart and spirit. To achieve maximum knowledge worker productivity we need to put a whole person in a whole job. In order to accomplish this we need to first make sure that we are expressing our unique voice and then help others do the same.
To express your voice you need vision, discipline, passion and conscience. This is essentially a model with at its base the Collins’ hedgehog metaphor and then adding the element of conscience.
He describes vision as having “a sense of yourself”. Discipline as doing whatever it takes to accomplish your vision. He defines passion as optimism, excitement, an emotional connection, determination, and unrelenting drive. Conscience, according to Covey is the moral law within you. Covey explains that conscience transforms passion into compassion.
Covey quotes the following as support for his “Voice” model
Aristotle
Where talents and the needs of the word cross, therein lies your vocation.
Greek Philosophy
“Know yourself, control yourself, give yourself”
The bottom line of Covey’s theory is that if you hire people whose passion intersects with the job description that they won’t require any supervision at all.
Reduce or Eliminate Key Frustrations to Create Happiness
Another key element to assist you in brainstorming your organization’s mission statement is to remember our goal. To achieve enlightenment through the reduction of suffering until no more suffering exists. The positive way to frame removing suffering is to restate our goal into creating happiness.
Therefore, our mission statements must contain our core process by which we are going to create happiness in the world. Again, we must create happiness for all of the stakeholders, customers, team members, vendors, stockholders, and community.
The easiest way to brainstorm on happiness creation is to think of it in terms of removing key frustrations. Find the answers to the questions of what the key frustrations are of all of the stakeholders and come up with a plan to reduce or eliminate some of those and you will create an unstoppable force for you mission statement.
This process will work for you at a personal level as well. Your goal in your organizations and families should be to reduce the frustrations of those around you; your bosses and spouses; your peers and co-workers; your friends; and your employees and children.
The better you get at this, the more you will be valued in this life.
The Five Purposes Tool
A great exercise you can use in defining your mission is the five purposes tool. I have used it successfully at both Somerset and Mann Properties. It is based on the Rick Warren book “The Purpose Driven Life”. In that book, Pastor Warren provides a template of the 5 purposes we are here for on this earth and in this life.
My thought was that it would also make sense that there would be five purposes to be at work (of course, five purposes to be a family member as well, etc.). I followed Rick’s template and just secularized the purposes. The following are the 5 purposes that I came up with for Mann Properties so that you can get the feel for the process.
Mann Properties’ 5 Purposes:
1. To create value in real estate for all of our stakeholders.
2. To create a community and communities.
3. To debate, define and document our core values and principles; and then to indoctrinate and exemplify them.
4. To serve the whole by doing our part and to be part of a synergistic team; 1 + 1 = 11
5. To feed the family by spreading the word
Completing this exercise will help you focus and communicate your mission.
Differentiation is the Key to Defining Your Mission
Differentiation is the fuel that drives the economic engine of a business. If your value proposition is not truly unique to your targeted customer, you really have nothing special to drive growth. You may create a space in the economy where you can exist, but you will only be taking up resources that could be better used in other endeavors. You will always struggle, constantly be frustrated and fall woefully short of the ultimate goal of enlightenment.
Your differentiation equation is the answer to the question “Would the world miss your organization/family is it went out of existence?” This is a tough question. If you are not sure of the answer, you better get busy.
Meditate deeply and contemplate the scene as former customers visit your website only to see that it is permanently offline, phone your business and discover that the service has been disconnected and visit you physical place of business only to find it dark and locked up tight. What would be their very next thought and what impact would it have on them in the long run.
Would they simply take the change in stride and move on to a competitor without giving it much thought or longing for the total experience they used to enjoy with your organization. Or, would there be at least a temporary immediate sense of loss and grief and even long after your business is gone will people still be taking about the good old days when you were there to service them.
What is the Definition of Compelling?
Compelling defines the degree of differentiation you need to create to become a high growth company. To create a high growth company, your value proposition needs to be 20% better than your competitors.
My definition of a high growth company is that you need to consistently average 15% growth per year. You need to average at least this minimum growth rate over the long haul, 10, 15, 25 or even 100 years. This will allow you to double your organization every five years. Most organizations define growth in terms of the top line, I prefer using the bottom line as the ultimate measuring stick.
There are a great many things you can do to achieve the result of doubling your bottom line every five years that have nothing at all to do with growing your top line. The most leveraged way to grow you bottom line is through experimenting with the breadth and depth of you product and service offerings, refining your internal systems and evaluating and training the talent on your team.
Why is the goal to be a high growth organization? The only way to win in the business world long term is to be able to constantly attract and retain the best talent. Talent is attracted to growing companies because talented people are looking for opportunity and growth creates opportunity.
The Value Equation
No discussion of customer value analysis is complete without mentioning the Toyota Motor Company. Their much publicized Toyota
Mission statements function as advertisements for your customers. They should communicate your unique value proposition for your targeted customer. The value proposition must be differentiated and compelling.
The Hedgehog Concept
When working on defining your mission, a key paradigm to keep top of mind is the Jim Collins Hedgehog Concept metaphor. The basic premise of the Hedgehog Concept (see “Good to Great” for an in-depth discussion) is that if want your business to excel vs. exist, you must define a mission in the context of the following test.
Where can you carve out a piece of the market that perfectly hits the bull’s-eye of the intersection of the following three constraints?
1. Where do you have the opportunity to become THE BEST?
2. What are you passionate about?
3. What does the marketplace value?
This therefore creates an acid teat that you can double back to and determine if your mission statement is a winner. If you can’t be the best at the core commercial purpose as defined in your mission statement, you are wasting the limited resources of business oxygen that could be better allocated to other endeavors either by you or someone else.
If you are not deeply, truly, honestly passionate about your mission, you will fail to achieve optimal results. If you are not going to be able to achieve the best results, what is the point in even trying? This life is too short. Use it wisely on something you can be deeply proud of accomplishing.
Passion is a critical element because a business is simply too hard day to day to keep your strength if you are running on anything else other than pure passion. I know this for a fact as I have worked in the business world in many capacities. I started my career in an international accounting firm. I left that firm and become the sole proprietor of a small CPA firm. I then was a partner in a small CPA firm. We then merged our firm into a large local CPA Firm. I now work as part of an executive team in my first venture into the real word outside of the public accounting service industry.
All of my above experience has had one common denominator; it has been difficult day to day and hour to hour. I continue to be amazed at what all can happen in one business day to sap your strength and rob your joy. Passion is the essential ingredient that keeps you forging ahead to accomplish you mission and ultimately achieve your vision.
You simply must be passionate about what you do, who you do it for and who you do it with or your work life will not produce the fruit of enlightenment.
Lastly, Stephen Covey always points out that we can never forget that even with all of the good intentions of being the best plus the benefit of being passionate etc, that no margin = no mission.
If there is not an economic model for your organization that will reward all of the stakeholders from the customers, to the team members, the vendors, stockholders and the community at large, there is no purpose in getting started or continuing on. There is an absolute unconditional guarantee that your efforts will fail in this 21st century flat world if there is not a sufficient profit model for your business.
Voice
Stephen Covey takes Jim Collins’ hedgehog metaphor to the next logical level with his “Voice” concept in his 8th habit book. The subtitle for the book is “From Effectiveness to Greatness”. It essentially provides a link from the 7 Habits to the 8th habit.
He, like Collins recognizes that we sell ourselves short if we do not shoot for individual and organizational greatness. He defines “voice” as unique personal significance. He frames a purpose filled life by quoting The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali:
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bounds. Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find your self in a new, great and wonderful world.
The premise of the book is that the key to success in the 21st century is going to be knowledge worker productivity. To maximize this measure, he describes the whole person model.
This model says that all of us desire to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy. Essentially, we want an existence that engages all of our senses, our mind, body, heart and spirit. To achieve maximum knowledge worker productivity we need to put a whole person in a whole job. In order to accomplish this we need to first make sure that we are expressing our unique voice and then help others do the same.
To express your voice you need vision, discipline, passion and conscience. This is essentially a model with at its base the Collins’ hedgehog metaphor and then adding the element of conscience.
He describes vision as having “a sense of yourself”. Discipline as doing whatever it takes to accomplish your vision. He defines passion as optimism, excitement, an emotional connection, determination, and unrelenting drive. Conscience, according to Covey is the moral law within you. Covey explains that conscience transforms passion into compassion.
Covey quotes the following as support for his “Voice” model
Aristotle
Where talents and the needs of the word cross, therein lies your vocation.
Greek Philosophy
“Know yourself, control yourself, give yourself”
The bottom line of Covey’s theory is that if you hire people whose passion intersects with the job description that they won’t require any supervision at all.
Reduce or Eliminate Key Frustrations to Create Happiness
Another key element to assist you in brainstorming your organization’s mission statement is to remember our goal. To achieve enlightenment through the reduction of suffering until no more suffering exists. The positive way to frame removing suffering is to restate our goal into creating happiness.
Therefore, our mission statements must contain our core process by which we are going to create happiness in the world. Again, we must create happiness for all of the stakeholders, customers, team members, vendors, stockholders, and community.
The easiest way to brainstorm on happiness creation is to think of it in terms of removing key frustrations. Find the answers to the questions of what the key frustrations are of all of the stakeholders and come up with a plan to reduce or eliminate some of those and you will create an unstoppable force for you mission statement.
This process will work for you at a personal level as well. Your goal in your organizations and families should be to reduce the frustrations of those around you; your bosses and spouses; your peers and co-workers; your friends; and your employees and children.
The better you get at this, the more you will be valued in this life.
The Five Purposes Tool
A great exercise you can use in defining your mission is the five purposes tool. I have used it successfully at both Somerset and Mann Properties. It is based on the Rick Warren book “The Purpose Driven Life”. In that book, Pastor Warren provides a template of the 5 purposes we are here for on this earth and in this life.
My thought was that it would also make sense that there would be five purposes to be at work (of course, five purposes to be a family member as well, etc.). I followed Rick’s template and just secularized the purposes. The following are the 5 purposes that I came up with for Mann Properties so that you can get the feel for the process.
Mann Properties’ 5 Purposes:
1. To create value in real estate for all of our stakeholders.
2. To create a community and communities.
3. To debate, define and document our core values and principles; and then to indoctrinate and exemplify them.
4. To serve the whole by doing our part and to be part of a synergistic team; 1 + 1 = 11
5. To feed the family by spreading the word
Completing this exercise will help you focus and communicate your mission.
Differentiation is the Key to Defining Your Mission
Differentiation is the fuel that drives the economic engine of a business. If your value proposition is not truly unique to your targeted customer, you really have nothing special to drive growth. You may create a space in the economy where you can exist, but you will only be taking up resources that could be better used in other endeavors. You will always struggle, constantly be frustrated and fall woefully short of the ultimate goal of enlightenment.
Your differentiation equation is the answer to the question “Would the world miss your organization/family is it went out of existence?” This is a tough question. If you are not sure of the answer, you better get busy.
Meditate deeply and contemplate the scene as former customers visit your website only to see that it is permanently offline, phone your business and discover that the service has been disconnected and visit you physical place of business only to find it dark and locked up tight. What would be their very next thought and what impact would it have on them in the long run.
Would they simply take the change in stride and move on to a competitor without giving it much thought or longing for the total experience they used to enjoy with your organization. Or, would there be at least a temporary immediate sense of loss and grief and even long after your business is gone will people still be taking about the good old days when you were there to service them.
What is the Definition of Compelling?
Compelling defines the degree of differentiation you need to create to become a high growth company. To create a high growth company, your value proposition needs to be 20% better than your competitors.
My definition of a high growth company is that you need to consistently average 15% growth per year. You need to average at least this minimum growth rate over the long haul, 10, 15, 25 or even 100 years. This will allow you to double your organization every five years. Most organizations define growth in terms of the top line, I prefer using the bottom line as the ultimate measuring stick.
There are a great many things you can do to achieve the result of doubling your bottom line every five years that have nothing at all to do with growing your top line. The most leveraged way to grow you bottom line is through experimenting with the breadth and depth of you product and service offerings, refining your internal systems and evaluating and training the talent on your team.
Why is the goal to be a high growth organization? The only way to win in the business world long term is to be able to constantly attract and retain the best talent. Talent is attracted to growing companies because talented people are looking for opportunity and growth creates opportunity.
The Value Equation
No discussion of customer value analysis is complete without mentioning the Toyota Motor Company. Their much publicized Toyota
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