The banality of the Mission Statement

This is a rather light hearted piece but if there is one thing which marks me out as a crusty, cynical old Brit, it is without doubt the 'Mission Statement'. It seems that every company, enterprise or organisation now has a Mission Statement? Why? Don't they know what they are there to do? I wouldn't mind but these things are so bloody banal.

I was reminded of this topic when reading my local council website which now has a 'mission statement' on its 'Local Elections' page which says of the purpose of its Elections Office, "To ensure all eligible citizens of Birmingham have an equal opportunity to exercise their democratic right to vote" Well, goodness me, we'd never have worked that one out!!

My former employers had a mission statement which used to make me wince every time I read it:- "To produce a product which will totally delight our customers." There is something about the expression 'totally delight' that sounds so sort of twee and camp. One can imagine the late John Inman clasping his hands together in 'Are you being served?' and saying "OOoooooo, Mrs. Slocum, what a total delight you are this morning!"




For those of you as cynical as I and believe that these things are just another example of American marketing, stemming from the evangelical core that seems to drive the United States, and which have somehow found their way to Britain look up the amusing Delbert.com site where you can generate a mission statement for all seasons Here are just a couple:-

"We envision to synergistically administrate competitive methods of empowerment so that we may interactively foster effective resources to exceed customer expectations"

"It is our mission to assertively build value-added meta-services in order that we may seamlessly leverage other's ethical information in order to solve business problems"

LOL Brilliant - just the right amount of terminological and fundamentally meaningless bullshit to look good when framed on the Managing Director's wall.

The thing I hate about mission statements is this inference that the company you work for is on some holy crusade and that you are disciples who have to be constantly reminded of the true path, instead of the truth which is that you are some expendable cypher who is only valuable for as long as you are needed to build your part of the company's profit base. It is a form of brainwashing designed to suck you into the belief that the company you work for is the most important thing in your life.

Great for them. IBM used to be past masters of this 'pull the wool over the eyes routine' where interviewees were weeded out if they didn't have a 'company philosophy'. ie if you thought giving them a fair day's work in exchange for a fair day's pay was enough. They wanted you heart, body and soul.

Easy for me to say, I suppose, now I've retired, but I worked in the Information Technology workplace all my life and never once have I ever allowed myself to be conned by this ploy. Oh sure Ive worked late and all through the night on occasions...but they damn well paid for it - in spades!