BRAND EXTENSION: THE MISSION STATEMENT
The next time you visit a corporate website,
look at the “About Us” page. Most feature a
mission statement, a few sentences or paragraphs that tell
the world at large what the company does and what it wants
to accomplish.
I have a theory about mission statements.
I believe that they came to be as a result of countless
CEOs asking count- less versions of the same question: What
am I trying to accomplish here? And how many times might
you have muttered this as a mother? While literally or figuratively
pounding your head against the wall? The mission statement
is a shortcut to the answer – a handy-dandy, quick-reference
guide to what the company is all about. Or why you chose
to throw birth-control caution to the wind. Once or twice.
(Or four times. What was I thinking? Cue more head-pounding.)
As the boss of your family, you will likely
find a mission statement handy, if for no other reason than
to remind yourself of what you were thinking when you brought
these people into the world. And why you shouldn’t
take them out. Corporately, a mission statement should address
the employees, the shareholders, and the customers. Here’s
a quick primer on adapting those three categories to family
life.
• Employees: Your employees are
the members of your family. And we all know who the boss
is, right?
• Shareholders: This refers to your own parents –
or any other relative or friend who has invested in you
and wants you to be successful. No matter how old you are,
your parents will always want to take responsibility for
your successes and failures. If you are the parent of a
young child and currently wondering when things get easier,
it sucks to realize this.
• Customers: Who are we getting to buy from us? Our
neighbours, friends, acquaintances? Everyone we interact
with on a daily basis? How about the world at large?
At its most basic level, a mission statement
should easily and clearly define who you are and what you
do. Think of it as your family’s elevator speech –
a thirty-second-or-less summary of what your business is.
This might be the time you’ve got to introduce yourself
at an indoor playground before the screaming starts.
Poke around on the Internet and
do some research. Make a list of words that mean something
to you, that perhaps reflect the attitudes or approaches
you feel are important: commitment, knowledge, quality,
weight loss, child control, or wherever your focus needs
to be. String ideas together until you come up with a mission
statement of your own. Mine? I worked with keywords such
as know, admire, inspire, value, personal mastery, and focus.
After a lot of thought, I boiled it down to this: “Do
your best. People are watching.”
Excerpted from Kathy Buckworth’s “I Am So The
Boss Of You: An 8 Step Guide To Giving Your Family “The
Business” McClelland & Stewart, 2013.
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Watch for Funny
Mummy every month. Follow Kathy on Twitter
@KathyBuckworth
or visit www.kathybuckworth.com
Kathy’s newest book, “I Am So The Boss
Of You: An 8 Step Guide To Giving Your Family The
Business” will be released Random House in March,
2013.
This article was originally published in the Metro
News.
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