Why Businesses Need A Mission And Purpose!

Your business mission and purpose play a pivotal role in creating your success.

Creating success requires planning, innovating and taking deliberate action to shape your future the way you want it to be.

You must have a well-developed and clear business mission and purpose that complements and furthers your personal goals and aspirations.

Something that guides the development of your business strategy and channels your innovation efforts to where they count most!

Together your mission and purpose provide a framework to guide your business’s direction and activity, ensuring everyone in your business is working in the same direction, for the same cause with maximum effort and effectiveness.

Your mission and purpose provide context for the development and realisation of your business strategy.

A ‘lens’ through which you spot opportunities and threats, focus your innovation efforts and to accelerate your success.

In the absences of a clear mission and purpose, the lack of direction leads to below average performance, misplaced innovation activity and outcomes that ultimately don’t align well with your personal goals and aspirations.

It decreases the chances of getting what you want from your business and limits your happiness and success.

Being in business in a competitive environment and not having a clear mission and purpose, is akin to drifting rudderless at sea in a storm that relentlessly pounds at your very existence – adrift and at great risk of failure!

Successful businesses have a well-developed mission and purpose that remains relatively enduring, while their goals and targets constantly adapt as the world changes.

They know why their business exists, what its purpose is and how it makes a difference!

It guides the development and execution of your business strategy and provides the meaning and the motivation needed to achieve superior business performance that is aligned with your personal goals and aspirations.

For people to work together effectively with maximum effort, they need to know ‘why’ and for what cause!

Your business mission and purpose guides their behaviour and actions.

It provides meaning, something that drives people to do things because they want to, not because they have to!

Focusing your business primarily on financial outcomes or profits is far less meaningful and inspirational than having a mission and purpose focused on enriching people’s lives and making the world a better place!

No matter how ‘ordinary’ you perceive your products and services to be, you can better motivate others by not focusing purely on your financial outcomes.

When you have a group of people rallying around a common mission and purpose, creativity and innovation can flourish – amazing things can happen!

Your business mission includes your business’s:

• Purpose – the reason for its existence and why anyone should care
• Core assumptions and beliefs – the handful of things everyone must embrace in the pursuit of its purpose
• Focus – clarity around where the business should go and importantly where it should not go

While your business mission doesn’t need to be in writing, it’s critical that it’s clearly articulated, communicated, understood and actioned.

An effective business mission will enhance success by establishing greater clarity of direction and loyalty from staff and customers.

A key part of your business mission is understanding the purpose of your business.

While all businesses have the same overriding purpose (to find customers and provide them with value) every business is unique, with different products, resources and activities.

Your business also has another unique and defining asset – you!

This allows you to define your own business purpose as something unique about you and the value your business provides. Something you can use to motivate your staff and engage your customers with.

It’s an opportunity to differentiate your business and strengthen its competitive advantage.

This point of difference should embrace your unique purpose – why you do what you do. Something that closely reflects who you are and what you believe, something:

• Unique about life, the world or your industry
• That you believe can or cannot be done

That you can use to inspire your staff and engage your customers!

To uncover your business purpose, you may need to think about:

• Why you started doing what you’re doing in the first place
• What would be lost if your business ceased to exist

It should be specific and personal, something that resonates with your core life-long values, strengths and passions. It must be something authentic that you can communicate and action clearly, easily and consistently.

Once you have clarity around your mission and purpose, it needs to be communicated and put into action.

Once you know what you want from life, your mission and purpose is a powerful tool that can be used to inspire and guide your business success.

You live your business mission and purpose by creating your vision of success, developing your business strategy and engaging in the ongoing innovation activity needed to get what you want from life!

If you would like to learn more about how to establish your mission and purpose and accelerate and sustain your success, give the team at Fortitude Business Consulting a call on 1300 551 040.