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The "mission" thing always makes me wonder... What will happen if your mission interferes with making profit? My guess is that, for 99% of companies, mission w

by badpun 8y ago

The "mission" thing always makes me wonder... What will happen if your mission interferes with making profit? My guess is that, for 99% of companies, mission will be ignored (or changed). This shows that the true mission (i.e. purpose of the company) is making profit and not what they declare.

quickthrower2 8y ago
The mission is what the company is aiming to achieve that will have the side effect of making a profit. An obvious example is Apple's mission to make an out of this world almost magic phone (back when the iPhone came out), and profits followed. But get a bunch of execs and say "mission: make money" wouldn't unleash the required creativity to do something like this. Instead they'd be cutting costs on iPod manufacturing or something lackluster like that.
vfinn 8y ago
Mission statement doesn't have to be contradictory to making profit. Making profit isn't evil in itself, but making profit based on an immoral mission statement is. There are two kinds of people: those who save the company by following the money, and those who let the company fail by following their principles. Those in the latter camp of course have to be careful from the get-go not to make their company too big to fail.
seba_dos1 8y ago
Recently I've learned that in some US states there is something called a Social Purpose Corporation, which actually lets you profit and stick to your mission. In a regular company, it's more than likely that putting your "mission" above maximizing your profits will put you in legal trouble.
- vfinn 8y ago
  Yes, the same exists in Finland (social entrepreneurship), but since we can all agree on that there are huge differences between companies, how they operate, and how moral they are, we can agree on that there's a lot of playground for the execution of a good mission statement. There's on the one hand maximization by moving your production to a third world country and by paying the absolute minimum to your employees (which no legal entity expects you to do AFAIK), but then there's also maximization by being decent and by doing everything properly (to which no legal entity also has nothing to sneeze at). So the maximization doesn't have to be the kind of grab your company by the throat kind of maximization.
Regardsyjc 8y ago
My favorite and only example I've read about is Patagonia. They started by making rock climbing gear but when they saw how much harm their gear was doing to these mountains, they completely stopped making and selling their best product and started selling another product that was better. I'm a small business owner but when I realized some of the harm I was doing, I stopped selling certain products as well. It's meant saying no to a pretty penny and I definitely wonder if I'm crazy a lot.

by badpun 8y ago

quickthrower2 8y ago

The mission is what the company is aiming to achieve that will have the side effect of making a profit. An obvious example is Apple's mission to make an out of this world almost magic phone (back when the iPhone came out), and profits followed. But get a bunch of execs and say "mission: make money" wouldn't unleash the required creativity to do something like this. Instead they'd be cutting costs on iPod manufacturing or something lackluster like that.

vfinn 8y ago

Mission statement doesn't have to be contradictory to making profit. Making profit isn't evil in itself, but making profit based on an immoral mission statement is. There are two kinds of people: those who save the company by following the money, and those who let the company fail by following their principles. Those in the latter camp of course have to be careful from the get-go not to make their company too big to fail.

seba_dos1 8y ago

Recently I've learned that in some US states there is something called a Social Purpose Corporation, which actually lets you profit and stick to your mission. In a regular company, it's more than likely that putting your "mission" above maximizing your profits will put you in legal trouble.

vfinn 8y ago
Yes, the same exists in Finland (social entrepreneurship), but since we can all agree on that there are huge differences between companies, how they operate, and how moral they are, we can agree on that there's a lot of playground for the execution of a good mission statement. There's on the one hand maximization by moving your production to a third world country and by paying the absolute minimum to your employees (which no legal entity expects you to do AFAIK), but then there's also maximization by being decent and by doing everything properly (to which no legal entity also has nothing to sneeze at). So the maximization doesn't have to be the kind of grab your company by the throat kind of maximization.

Regardsyjc 8y ago

My favorite and only example I've read about is Patagonia. They started by making rock climbing gear but when they saw how much harm their gear was doing to these mountains, they completely stopped making and selling their best product and started selling another product that was better. I'm a small business owner but when I realized some of the harm I was doing, I stopped selling certain products as well. It's meant saying no to a pretty penny and I definitely wonder if I'm crazy a lot.