The Mission

I think ours works.

This week, I was shocked by an aha moment when someone read our website homepage mission statement and said “Oh that’s what it means!”.

It’s a good story with a happy ending, and I’d like to share it with you.

Organisations need vision statements, missions, purposes, values and principles. In general, I think they need to be short and simple, and most are too complicated. But above all things, these statements need to live in the hearts of those who use them.

Ideally, one of those things (the mission, vision, purpose, values, principles) winds itself into the soul and becomes one with it and the individual finds its bond with the group so that both the individual and the group thrive off each other.

The way we embed our commitment to the UN SDGs within our company is with a key phrase in all our founding documents and legal agreements that commits the parties (especially clients, employees and suppliers) to talk with each other.

I know - “talk”??? That’s not going to save the planet.

Actually, it might.

The talk goes like this (you may recall from previous posts):

• here’s what I’m doing

• what are you doing?

• how can we help each other?

I’ve had three very meaningful discussions this week with new joiners, pretty much following those three points.

Each one was extraordinarily uplifting because we allowed each other to react and respond and we allowed each other to act dumb and to ask and enquire and explore of each other. In all three times, we ended up in a different place to the one we had started. We took resolve, inspiration, motivation, clarity and conviction from those conversations. And because the last question (how?) leads almost automatically to an action plan, you feel like you’re taking away a new mindset as well as practical actions away from the talk.

These talks are very inspirational.

So back to the mission statement. One other conversation along these lines with a co-worker this week was extraordinarily illuminating.

We were counting how many UN SDG contracts we have signed with clients. (The answer is six, with 12 employee contracts, and 45 supplier contracts now having the UN SDG clause). I said “94 to go”. Raised eyebrows.

Our mission statement (right at the top and centre of our website) says:

”to move 100 organisations to embed commitment to the UN sustainable development goals within 2,572 days” (i.e. by 2030)

“Aha! So we’ve signed up 6 companies to our UN SDG clause and our corporate mission is to sign up another 94……?”.

“Yes.”

I like the military definition of “mission” as "the task that needs to be accomplished” because in a sea of visions and missions and values, breaking out the task to be accomplished makes it stand out for me.

So our task is to engage with organisations and help them change. Every single person in our ecosystem of employees, clients, suppliers and other partners can join in on that, every single person can contribute and participate, and if we do it together, then we will do it faster and better.

For me personally, I find great clarity and purpose in our corporate mission. And it was great to see it hit home with another person in the same way. I think our mission statement works.

So let’s do it.