The New York Times had a good article in it's business section yesterday on the ubiquity of mission statements and how they are infected with "bizspeak and bromides."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/jobs/23mgmt.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
In creating this synthesized blather, companies engage in much of what is wrong with companies today. Mission statements, after all, become "an important team-building experience"...they're created by a "broad cross-section of people [who] would jointly write a statement both specific and lofty and then seek feedback from other employees."
Ack ack ack ack ack.
That's all for me right now. I have to start activating Ad Aged's mission statement which is: We are committed to continually restore principle-centered content to proactively disabuse the prevailing paradigms of corporate manifestations."
Halavai.
I recently met with a partner at a small agency who took pride in her shop's mission statement. The quote she gave was all about their commitment and dedication to the client and I was left thinking, what about to your employees. This was certainly not a way to recruit someone interested in a good place to work. My mission now is to now stay clear of mission statements.
ReplyDeletei love it!!!....so true!!!...
ReplyDeleteWay back, I actually owned my own creative shop.
ReplyDeletewe were damn good and the agency was actually the start of what is now a Cannes winning Swedish shop. Well, that was just a bit of bragging to start with, but the point was that we had little gatherings now and then. We ate well and we drank well and tried to relax from the hard work it is to try and become a top creative shop. One of the more intellectually prone writers, the type who goes to bed with books on "how to become a successful multinational super conglomerate and rich as a troll in the process", pointedly asked what our mission statement was. Eh, well, I kind of thought it was clear to everyone I replied. As none of the other had really thought much about mission statements there were some puzzled expressions around the table. Okay, i said, I guess we will have to write down that our mission statement is to be as bloody good as we can. Which is what we have done every day so far without having it framed on the wall.
To which someone, you know who, replied: "it can't be that simple".
I guess he went on to write books about "How to.....