Why Mission Statements Fail

What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Do you wake up when the sun rises?
Or Is it because you already know your kids are awake?

I don’t know what got you out of bed this morning, but I do know that it probably wasn’t your company’s mission statement. There’s a good chance you don’t even remember the mission statement itself, but an even better chance it doesn’t inspire you to jump out of bed and head to work.

The purpose of a mission statement was noble. It was to provide employees with that clear purpose. It was to help become a purpose-driven organization. And we know the research, purpose-driven companies have more motivated employees, they have an easier time recruiting top talent, they drive that top talent to great performance. We know that they have less turnover. We know that they have greater profitability, not just because they’re performing better but because customers respond to purpose-driven organizations. We know purpose-driven companies have a lower cost of customer acquisition, longer tenure of customer loyalty, and higher net promoter scores.

We know that everything works better in a purpose-driven organization.

But mission statements aren’t really providing that purpose. It may have started out with that intent, but somehow the mission statement…