The mission statement determines the overall goal and clarifies the paths to reach them. Indeed, the mission formulates the strategies and defines the reason of existence for the companies.
Most of the established startups develop their mission statements to set the company’s objectives. The mission serves employees and shareholders to get aligned with startups’ core values.
Having a clear mission is critical for every business but it is vital for startups too. However, there are many startups that are unaware of the importance of mission statement or even in some cases they don’t even pay attention to it. So let’s review the importance of mission for startups to shed some light on the subject.
Why is mission statement important for startups?
Determination of the direction:
As it was discussed above, the mission statement determines the main goals of a startup and defines how to reach them. A startup should customize its mission statements to remind the employees why they exist.
Clarifying the business path:
No! It is not about the vision! The mission is about where we want to be in the future but the vision is about preferred future such as 1-year program, 5-years or etc.
A platform for making clear decisions:
The mission provides a platform that enables decision makers in a company to define responsibility and authority altogether. It helps to stay on the path and reach the future.
A template for innovation:
Innovation and changing the past norms are some of the startups’ impact. However, with a clear mission that sets the core values, the employees are more likely to be able to make a change and impact.
Formulating the strategies:
Startups which have no strategies can’t reach anywhere. The strategies could be extracted using a defined effective mission.
Providing employee engagement:
Without a clear mission, employees can’t get involved with the startup’s objectives. By providing a mission, startup owners could ensure that there is an employee engagement in their business.
Accompanying startup culture:
Ensuring about the employee’s performance is determined by the culture. An effective culture could boost employee engagement and place employees at their best and inspire them to support the company’s objectives. It could retain employees and attract great talents to the startup. However, it also starts with a mission.
Mission helps to define the vision:
Nowadays, employees prefer to work for the best companies that let them thrive both professionally and personally. With an effective mission, startups could define a competitive vision to provide a mutual understanding with their employees.
How to develop a mission?
Below, we discussed the best tips to develop your customized mission and optimize it.
An effective mission should have five elements which are:
- Core values
- Engagement
- Vision
- Believability
- Particularity
Practical advice on developing an effective mission:
- Don’t provide a boring mission.
- Don’t talk about your startup. It’s about why your startup is valuable.
- Don’t talk about how-tos. This is a mission, not a detailed plan.
- Bold the outcomes in your mission.
- Keep it short and simple.
- Integrate it with your startup culture.
The mission statement helps startups to remain consistently sharp and focused. However, it’s not only about writing a mission. As a startup owner or director, you have to ensure that the employees understand and accept it completely as well.
Published @ Techrasa