Who Are You?

This is the whole vision, mission part of running a business. The truth is, your company is operating through a vision and mission regardless of whether or not you actually have a formal written statement and, more importantly, regardless of what you really want that vision and mission to be.

Now I’m not talking about sitting in a room for 10-20 hours with a high priced consultant to come up with a mission and vision statement that no one will be able to remember 15 minutes after they leave.

It’s more philosophical. It’s about being able to describe the culture of your company and why you love your clients. It’s archetypical. It’s deep within. It’s top down.

It’s a message that’s so profound your entire team can lead themselves because of it. Here’s an example. In their truly smart, wonderful, and highly recommended book, Made to Stick, Chip Heath & Dan Heath tell many wonderful stories but the one that “sticks’ with me with regard to vision and mission is their story of Pegasus.

Floyd Lee had been in the Marine Corp for 25 years but came out of retirement when the Iraq war began. Floyd Lee was an Army cook. Army food isn’t anything to write home about. It’s bland, overcooked and prepared in massive quantities. Every Army cook gets the same ingredients to work with but Floyd Lee looked beyond those ingredients. When he went back into active service he said, “The good Lord gave me a second chance to feed soldiers. I’ve been waiting for this job all my life, and here I am in Baghdad.” His chow hall was called Pegasus. He wanted this chow hall to be special. He knew the stress of being a soldier. He knew how hard they worked and how much constant danger they were in. He wanted Pegasus to be an oasis. His mission was clear — “As I see it, I am not just in charge of food service; I am in charge of morale.”

To quote directly from Made to Stick:

“This vision manifests itself in hundreds of small actions taken by Lee’s staff on a daily basis. At Pegasus, the white walls of the typical mess hall are covered with sports banners. There are gold treatments on the windows, and green tablecloths with tassels. The harsh fluorescent lights have been replaced by ceiling fans with soft bulbs. The servers wear tall white chef’s hats. Lee realizes that serving food is a job, but improving morale is a mission. Improving morale involves creativity and experimentation and mastery. Serving food involves a ladle. One of the soldiers who commute to Pegasus for Sunday dinner said, “The time you are in here, you forget you’re in Iraq.” ”

What’s really brilliant about this type of a mission (to improve morale) is how simple it is to define and how everyone on the team can use it to guide their own actions. It’s not hard for anyone on the Pegasus team to check in with themselves and ask, “is what I’m doing helping to improve morale?” If so, then keep doing it. If not, stop and figure out how to get back in alignment.

Come up with something this powerful for your company and watch your sales and profits increase, watch your team be more energetic and focused, watch your clients be more welcoming, etc.

[Would you like more marketing ideas? Get our new eBook, How to Market Big today.]