Fine-tuning your mission: your mission statement can put you right on top of your market—or make you irrelevant - Marketing

University Business, June, 2003 by Robert A. Sevier

CLARIFYING YOUR MISSION

Few colleges actually change their missions; rather, they periodically tweak them. (One notable exception was the Quaker school in Philadelphia that quite literally became a military academy overnight when they sensed a shift in their population base.) The need or desire to tweak a mission statement generally arises when there is a change in the marketplace, as part of a larger strategic planning process, during an accreditation review or a change in leadership, or prior to a major capital campaign.

To clarify your mission, you must ask your most important audiences--both internal and external--the following questions:

* What are our core values? What matters most? What are our enduring qualities? What are our unchangeables?

* What needs do we fill? How well do we fill them? How do we know?

* How should we respond and relate to our most important stakeholders and customers?

* What makes us unique or distinctive?

* In what ways have we furthered the mission over the past decade?

* Who would miss us if we vanished?

A president I interviewed while writing this column said that a mission statement is all about finding relevance in today's marketplace. Afraid that he might anger his peers, he asked that I not use his name. But he explained, "Many colleges and universities--perhaps even my own--are relevant to only one group: faculty. Unfortunately, unless they can find relevance with supporting constituencies--prospective students, donors, and alumni--they wilE increasingly find themselves ignored by the marketplace." He's right. Relevance is an exceptionally important goal for any mission statement.

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING MISSION STATEMENTS

Leonard Goodstein in Applied Strategic Planning: How to Develop a Plan That Really Works (Goodstein, Nolan & Pfeiffer; McGraw-Hill Trade; 1993) believes that an exceptional mission statement must be:

* Clear, understandable, and applicable to all internal stakeholders

* Brief enough for most people to keep it in mind

* Clear about: a) Which customer or client needs the organization is attempting to fill, not which products or services are offered; b) Who the organization's primary customers or clients are; c) Why the organization exists; that is, the overriding purpose that the organization is trying to serve, and its transcendental goals

* Broad enough to allow flexibility in implementation, but not broad enough to permit a lack of focus

* A guidepost by which internal stakeholders in the organization can make decisions

* Reflective of the organization's values, beliefs, and philosophy

* Achievable: realistic enough for organization members to buy into

To the degree that you meet these criteria, you likely have an exceptional mission statement.

ONGOING COMMUNICATION

After you have clarified and affirmed your mission, you must communicate it to the larger campus community. The following scenarios, inspired by John Kotter in Leading Change (Harvard Business School Press; 1996) offer two options for communicating a mission statement.