Although no two mission statements are alike (nor should they be), it’s important to regularly audit yours—perhaps when you do your annual policy review, overall—to determine whether or not the statement is still relevant and actually being put into practice. Here is a helpful checklist.
- Is your mission statement still relevant? If not, why not? What needs changed?
- Is your purpose still the same?
- What about your core values?
- Do you offer different products and/or services, ones that have caused your mission statement to need to evolve?
- What makes your business unique? Is that clearly indicated?
- Can your entire team recite your mission statement?
- When you ask each member of the team (or, if at a large company, a sample of them) what the mission statement means, how consistent are the answers?
- How closely do they match what key staff believe the statement to mean?
- If there are gaps, where do they exist? How significant are they?
- In your policy manual, have you included concrete examples of how the mission statement could be put into practice? If not, would that be helpful?
- How do you explicitly communicate your mission statement to your customers or clients?
- Through signs that state it?
- In your website and printed materials?
- In your advertising?
- In company meetings, how often do you discuss the mission statement?
- When your company faces challenges and/or difficult choices, do you consult your mission statement when reviewing possible solutions? How is it your benchmark?
- When you create new policies, do you ensure that they mesh with your mission?
- How often do you review your policy manual to make sure that what’s included dovetails with your mission? As just one gut-check example, how well does your disciplinary policy match your mission statement?
- You can also review the following for matches and mismatches:
- Your organizational chart
- Job descriptions
- Forms
- Any other employee handbooks or manuals
- Take a look at how you reward employees. Are you rewarding them for phrases contained in your mission statement? If, for example, your statement includes “providing compassionate care,” do you actually reward and promote based on that value, or are your rewards based on how well a person increases revenues or reduces expenses?
- What processes do you have in place for employees to report when they feel that procedures conflict with the mission statement? How are those reports handled?
- What procedures do you have in place to update the mission statement, when needed?
- As you read through this checklist, what items would be important to add or edit to match your business’s unique needs? Who will spearhead that initiative? What is the deadline?
