Stewardship over corporate mission statements is rarely, if ever, included in job descriptions for PR officers. But the savvy PR counselor will see a tired mission statement
as an opportunity to leverage his or her advisory relationship with the CEO - and take responsibility for facilitating its reevaluation.
"The corporate communications person doesn't actually make policy, but rather creates the environment and framework for the CEO to start the process going - and communicates
the policy [behind the mission statement] once it's agreed upon," says Jack Bergen. Bergen is president of the Council of PR Firms and previously served in senior level
communications positions with Westinghouse and GE.
But pinpointing a firmly rooted corporate mantra for critique is sometimes a gamble, he warns. "The negative is you are stepping into an area that is undefined, and there's
little precedence. It's often a process that you do from scratch, and there's a bit of personal and professional risk involved. If you fail, it will be very visible." And, few
corporations tend to clarify exactly who is in charge of mission statements, so stepping on the toes of other senior officers is a potential casualty.
Mission Critical
Whether or not PR plays a strategic role, mission statements in today's corporations are changing out of necessity - largely because technology is altering the very essence of
what many businesses do. Westinghouse revisited its mission statement in 1995 when it bought CBS and began its metamorphosis from an industrial powerhouse to a media giant. Just
last February, Intel CEO Andy Grove announced that the company would adjust its credo for the first time in 15 years to reflect its transition from a maker of PC technology to
developing frameworks for ecommerce.
"The irony is that a mission is useless if it's the same one you've had for 15 to 20 years," Bergen says. "If it's static, then the company is static." But by the same token,
companies that rework their statements too routinely run the risk of appearing schizophrenic and unfocused.
"We try to recycle our [mission statement] every eight years or so, but we revisit our fundamental strategies every three to five years," says Barie Carmichael, VP and chief
communications officer at Dow Corning Corp. "Outside environments will change dramatically, but technically your vision should be broad enough that it's not going to change [too
often]."
Case in point: When superCEO Jack Welch took the helm at GE, his vision was that the company would be number one or two in every area in which it competed. The company's
strategic focus has evolved over time - from manufacturing to financial services to ecommerce tools - but the vision has remained constant.
Beyond Rhetoric
Admittedly, mission statements are what companies make of them, and those perceived as mere lip service to God-knows-who quickly become fodder for Dilbert jokes.
"If employees read it and recognize that it doesn't match the reality [of the corporate environment] it can be counterproductive," says David Baker, principal of ReCourses,
Inc., a Memphis-based management consulting firm serving small businesses.
And in the end, employees are the primary stakeholders where mission statements are concerned. "Investors don't care about them as much as they care about measuring returns and
stability," Baker says. "Consider how far removed the average investor is from the company. They're not buying shares directly, they're usually buying them through mutual
funds."
Employees, on the other hand, will tune into whether or not the company line is more than just a line. "They'll feel like the company isn't being honest if its mission says
employees are important, but it doesn't back up the claim," Baker says. "A mission statement should capture the center and humanness of a company. It's what shapes how decisions
are made in areas such as operations and personnel.
"Having said that, I'm not sure people really pay tons of attention to them, though," Baker adds. "The exercise of creating [a mission statement] is actually the most
beneficial part" because the process often dredges up core issues that the senior management team needs to address.
(Bergen, 877/773-4767; Carmichael, 517/496-6470; Baker, 615/831-2277)
Inside Out
Mission statements serve primarily as internal credos and should not be confused with market positioning statements and other external messaging strategies. But communicating a
mission statement externally has its merits. Doing so sends a message to employees that you mean what you say, and you're willing to be held accountable by customers, investors
and the media. Some potential places to plug your mission statement:
- Annual report
- Web site
- Executive speeches
- Town hall meetings
- Analyst presentations
- Interviews with journalists (but not press releases...don't give reporters an opportunity to confuse your mission statement with your boilerplate info)