Don't Change Your Mission Statement

They say that once you write a Mission Statement it should never change. The reason is that if you allow yourself to change something as important as the reason you are in business, you risk losing focus. With that you risk all kinds of things, up to and including failure.

Still, I wonder sometimes; we wrote it 15 years ago, if we were to write it from scratch today, would it be the same? Just for clarity’s sake, lets all look at it together.

To build a successful company that upholds Christlike principles and inspires people to grow.

To Build a Successful Company

Now, a good Mission Statement answers the question, why do you exist? I believe ours does that. I remember that when we wrote it, we wanted to ensure an attitude of continuous growth. In other words, we wanted to make sure that we were never content to stay where we are. Thus, you see action words like build, uphold, and inspire.

Further, we wanted to acknowledge that we strive for success, but we didn’t want to get too specific because as the industry and world change around us, we want to allow for technology advancements, market adjustments, and the like. So, ‘build a successful company’ seemed to capture all we desired.

That Upholds Christlike Principles

Now, we hope to live our lives doing what God would have us to do. And yet, we freely acknowledge that not everyone who works here believes the same way we do about who Jesus is. Yet Jesus did teach some pretty awesome things about how we should treat each other and about the dignity of every human. So, it seemed to us that whereas no one must be a Christ-follower to work here, we should all be on board with treating people the way you’d want to be treated, one of Jesus’ most famous teachings. Hence, ‘upholds Christlike principles’.

And Inspires People to Grow

The third thing we were passionate about is that we are here to do more than make money. People, and specifically personal growth, are a much greater goal. More than a paycheck, we hope the greatest thing you receive from the company is who you become while working here. We want to ‘inspire people to grow’.

There you have it; build a successful company, uphold Christlike principles, inspire people to grow. Oh, I suppose we may have worded it differently if we wrote it now, but I’d bet that it would say the same thing. That’s our ‘why’. And we’re not gonna change it.