Net Insight developed a fun and clever tool which illustrates the meaningless business-speak that is so often used in a corporate mission statement.
Click on the “play” button in this Corporate Mission Statement Generator, and watch business jargon phrases spin randomly into an automatically created statement.
I ran the generator twice, and received these results, full of meaningless self-promotional jargon:
Our business is dedicated to leveraging the full range of our management leadership with awareness of integrity without compromise.
We are committed to overseeing a high level of investor return by performance and focus of the highest integrity.
I’ve read mission statements that are very similar to these parodies! This tool is light and funny. But, it’s not funny if employees and stakeholders and customers don’t understand a mission statement.
Here is an actual mission statement I read recently (maybe this is really an elevator speech – it’s so inscrutable it’s hard to determine):
Company X produces vendor-neutral solutions to enterprise-wide integration for mission critical applications.
Huh? What does Company X actually do? What is this purpose?
Make sure your own mission statement is free of meaningless jargon. It should clearly state the purpose of your company, in concrete terms. No spin.
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No Spin Mission Statements – cut self-promotional, meaningless jargon: [link to post]
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Here! Here! I worked for a medical center once that had a broad mission statement and made everyone learn it. In fact, employees were randomly stopped in the halls and asked to recite it. It was posted throughout the hospital.
The thing was, just because an employee could recite it didn’t mean that the employee bought into it.
Thanks for the fun tool … it is certainly good for a laugh!