What Makes A Powerful Mission Statement

In this episode, we’ll review the four elements of a powerful mission statement and offer some powerful examples as well. Most mission statements aren’t all that inspiring. The committee-crafted, jargon laden paragraph (or hopefully less) that gets quoted every so often in speeches and referenced in most printed documents. But they lack power either because they’re wordy and complicated, or because they’re written in an attempt to satisfy every stakeholder…which usually ends up inspiring none of them. Fortunately, there is an easy way to know whether or not your organization’s mission statement inspires, or merely satisfies.

Powerful Mission statements are...

Meaningful
Believable
Powerful
Credible

If you’re in a senior leadership role, and your mission statement lacks one of these four elements, you should consider revising or rewording it. But if you’re not able to change it, you’re not out of luck. Instead, take on the role of helping reframe the existing mission statement into one your team sees as meaningful, believable, powerful, and credible. Talk about how the existing mission plays into the projects your team works on. In doing so, you’ll add a little power to their perspective on the mission, and a little more motivation to their work. Through reframing, you’ll have gotten the team one step closer to a purpose that brings out the team’s best work ever.

//DO YOUR BEST WORK EVER
If you liked this video and you want to help your team do their best work ever, check out the free resources we've compiled at https://davidburkus.com/resources

//ABOUT DAVID
One of the world’s leading business thinkers, David Burkus’ forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books are helping leaders and teams do their best work ever.

He is the best-selling author of four books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, USAToday, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, CNN, the BBC, NPR, and CBS This Morning. Since 2017, Burkus has been ranked as one of the world’s top business thought leaders by Thinkers50. As a sought-after international speaker, his TED Talk has been viewed over 2 million times. He’s worked with leaders from organizations across all industries including Google, Stryker, Fidelity, Viacom, and even the US Naval Academy.

A former business school professor, Burkus holds a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Oklahoma, and a doctorate in strategic leadership from Regent University.

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