Nouns kill the power of missions and values
A tiny thought but potentially quite practical. Organisations have a mission, right? They have values. Dull, boring, lifeless. No one cares about the organisation’s stated mission or values; they probably don’t even know they exist.
What if an organisation was on a mission?
What if we valued things, actions, attitudes?
Sounds more exciting. Sounds like something you want to be a part of. You betcha.
Shawn, author of Putting Stories to Work, is one of the world's leading business storytelling consultants. He helps executive teams find and tell the story of their strategy. When he is not working on strategy communication, Shawn is helping leaders find and tell business stories to engage, to influence and to inspire. Shawn works with Global 1000 companies including Shell, IBM, SAP, Bayer, Microsoft & Danone. Connect with Shawn on:
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Shawn – I think you underestimate the power of corporate language to sterilize anything it touches.
Unless the organization shows that it values something it can use nouns, verbs, conjunctions, adverbs, the active voice, the passive voice, wacky sans serif font or even Esperanto. It will still have the same impact.
That’s my point Matt. Corporate language dictates that we have a mission and we have values. Rarely do you hear a company say they are on a mission or they act as if they really value things. I reckon that companies that are on a mission are the inspiring examples today. Bodyshop is one, Virgin is another and I’m sure you can think of others.
So long as we’re using military terminiology (missions, killing, power) and, if nouns are out, can we have a war-on-verbing – but then again, if we can’t objectivise how can we seek to cast blame on those unfeeling externalised objects 😉
I like the way the metaphor ‘on’ tilts the balance towards being/becoming, but without the abstract philosophy. If missions have targets, do we set easy targets, ease up when we reach them, rather than continue the journey?
Candidate for the shortest mission statement? How about Valentino Rossi’s “GO!!!!!!”
The other one I like a lot is Otago’s “House of Pain” (though maybe that’s likely to get me banned on an Ozzie blog?) – sounds more like a nominalisation, even lacking a verb, but it sets up a glorious frame of embodied expectations
The story about creating a mission statement for the kids birthday party speaks volumes too.