Jim Collins (author of Good to Great and Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0) defines your mission as the mountain that you're currently climbing while your purpose is your north star guiding that is never truly attainable.
Jim Collins defines a mission like this: "unlike purpose, which is never achieved, a mission should be achievable. It translates values and purpose into an energizing, highly focused goal - like the moon mission. It is crisp, clear, bold, and exhilarating. It reaches out and grabs people in the gut. It requires little or no explanation; people "get it" right away. Once the mission is fulfilled, you return to purpose to set a new mission."
Whatever mission you choose, it has to be attainable, definable, and trackable. Try to keep it as short as possible; one or two sentences is ideal.
Here are some examples of good Mission Statements:
PayPal: "To build the web's most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution."
Henry Ford set this mission in 1909: "We're going to democratize the automobile."
Asos: "To become the number 1 fashion destination for 20-somethings globally."
Collins developed another term to use in place of mission, Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). It means exactly what it sounds like, a huge goal your business will spend years working towards. Feel free to use "BHAG" in place of "mission" if it helps you. But whatever you do, please unlearn what you have learned about mission statements. They have become more or less meaningless in most companies. Your mission must be exciting and inspiring!
Side Note: We are using examples of mission statements from highly ambitious organizations with goals that can shape global industries. But that doesn't mean your mission statement needs to be grandiose or overly ambitious. The main thing is it aligns with your picture of what success looks like for your business. If the picture you have of success is being the best florist in your county, that is your mission.
Write the mission statement you land on in the allotted section on the Vision Statement PDF. It doesn't have to be perfect right now, the most important thing is that it meets the criteria we shared above.
Jim Collins (author of Good to Great and Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0) defines your mission as the mountain that you're currently climbing while your purpose is your north star guiding that is never truly attainable.
Jim Collins defines a mission like this: "unlike purpose, which is never achieved, a mission should be achievable. It translates values and purpose into an energizing, highly focused goal - like the moon mission. It is crisp, clear, bold, and exhilarating. It reaches out and grabs people in the gut. It requires little or no explanation; people "get it" right away. Once the mission is fulfilled, you return to purpose to set a new mission."
Whatever mission you choose, it has to be attainable, definable, and trackable. Try to keep it as short as possible; one or two sentences is ideal.
Here are some examples of good Mission Statements:
PayPal: "To build the web's most convenient, secure, cost-effective payment solution."
Henry Ford set this mission in 1909: "We're going to democratize the automobile."
Asos: "To become the number 1 fashion destination for 20-somethings globally."
Collins developed another term to use in place of mission, Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). It means exactly what it sounds like, a huge goal your business will spend years working towards. Feel free to use "BHAG" in place of "mission" if it helps you. But whatever you do, please unlearn what you have learned about mission statements. They have become more or less meaningless in most companies. Your mission must be exciting and inspiring!
Side Note: We are using examples of mission statements from highly ambitious organizations with goals that can shape global industries. But that doesn't mean your mission statement needs to be grandiose or overly ambitious. The main thing is it aligns with your picture of what success looks like for your business. If the picture you have of success is being the best florist in your county, that is your mission.
Write the mission statement you land on in the allotted section on the Vision Statement PDF. It doesn't have to be perfect right now, the most important thing is that it meets the criteria we shared above.