No Mission? You’ve Got Drama!
Yes, it’s true! I have been preaching it to my clients for years now. You must have a clear mission for your business. Why? Of course there are the business reasons. Your mission will provide you with a road map and will help you make quicker yes or no decisions about services to provide or partnerships to create. But, believe it or not, this is not the primary reason from my perspective.
The main reason to have a clear mission statement is that you will experience less drama.
Yes, I mean it! We all have an innate desire for our lives to mean something. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Your clear mission can inspire your staff, create a glue that pulls a team together around a common purpose and – Create a Drama Free Work Zone!
People fired up with passion and fully focused on a powerful mission do not have time to worry about who said what to who or who didn’t invite who to lunch. Trust me!
Now, you can’t tell me that your dusty ‘ole, sittin’ in the corner binder with the mission statement in it proves me wrong. Just having the mission typed up in a binder or hanging in a frame on a back wall somewhere isn’t enough to achieve your drama free goal. But, get that thing out, dust it off and tell your team about it. Let them feel your passion – Feeeeeeeelll it! Why are you doing what you do? Where were you when you first felt the tug? How did if feel the first time you had a success?
Here are the 5 simple steps to follow starting today:
1. Share your story! Open up, be vulnerable and let them experience your why. Get emotional! Let them feel your mission. Paint a vision for your team.
2. Have each team member list how they can help your company meet your mission. Make it a brainstorming activity you can all work on together. Get really creative and restate all of the duties. Every task attaches to your mission no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Dusting becomes part of creating a welcoming environment, taking X-rays is about helping people in pain feel better. You get the idea.
3. Keep that mission front and center so that everyone is focused on it all day every day. Ask these questions at the beginning and end of each day:
a. What will we do today to help us meet our mission?
b. What did we do today to help us meet our mission?
4. Celebrate your successes! This doesn’t mean buying party hats and bottles of champagne. Just make sure that you are carving out time to show gratitude to your team for steps in the right direction. It will help keep that focus on your mission. Send an email out or hit a bell when you reach a target. Post something on your bulletin board.
5. If someone tells you they don’t set goals or don’t care about your mission or that they are only there to get a paycheck, release them into the world where they can earn their dollars elsewhere. You deserve better and so does your mission!!
Just give it a try. I promise you it will help! Then email me. I want to hear your success story!