What Is a Mission Statement?
A mission statement is a concise description of an organization’s fundamental purpose. It answers the question, “Why do we exist?” by articulating the organization’s goals, primary functions, and target audience. A mission statement serves as a guiding light for the organization, outlining what it seeks to achieve and how it intends to impact its community or industry. It provides direction and helps align the company members’ strategies, decisions, and behaviors toward a common purpose.
Effective mission statements are usually concise, clear, and inspirational. They often encapsulate the company’s intentions and the values and philosophy underpinning its operations. They are critical tools for internal alignment and external communication, helping to ensure that all organizational efforts are synchronized and easily understood by stakeholders, including employees, partners, customers, and investors.
What Is an Example of a Mission Statement?
A well-known example of a mission statement is from Google: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This statement clearly outlines Google’s overarching goal and touches on its core purpose. It is concise yet broad enough to encompass Google’s various services, from search engine technology to data analytics and digital advertising.
The mission statement reflects Google’s role in technology and information management, indicating what the company does (organizes information) and why it does it (to make it accessible and useful.
Analysis:
- Clarity and Conciseness: Google’s mission statement is easy to understand. It avoids jargon, making it accessible to a wide audience, which is key to effective communication.
- Broad Scope: The mission covers all Google’s services without detailing specific products, allowing the company flexibility in its operations while staying aligned with its core purpose.
- Aspirational Quality: The idea of making information universally accessible is a powerful goal that speaks to innovation and improvement, qualities that are inspirational to both the workforce and the market.
- Action-Oriented: By using verbs like “organize” and “make,” Google’s mission statement is dynamic and proactive, suggesting ongoing effort and development.
- This statement focuses on Google’s core function of information organization and accessibility.
- It emphasizes the vast scope of the information they aim to manage (“world’s information”) and the ultimate benefit to users (“universally accessible and useful”).
- This mission statement targets a broad audience, including users and potentially employees, highlighting Google’s role in making information readily available.
