Anyone who questions the relationship between business and storytelling need look no farther than the humble corporate mission statement.

 

The goal of this article is to teach the value of storytelling so you can develop engaging mission statements that connect with opportunity, challenge yourself to accomplish meaningful work, and transform the lives of the customers you serve.

 

Formally, a mission statement defines a company’s (or in the above case, an article’s) purpose(s), but any statement of intent can be viewed as an informal mission statement.

Mission statements are often cobbled together by pragmatists—Our mission is to make as much money as possible; after all, we are a business.

Others are put together by people who hope to curry favor with boards of directors and stockholders—Our mission is to manage assets and growth for the benefit of stakeholders and customers alike (Nice how they threw in customers, too, isn’t it?).

Some are written by idealists—Our mission is to make the world a better, freer, cleaner place.

The best ones are written by storytellers.

What is the story of your business?

What is a story? Stories embody our natural human search for meaning. By understanding how stories work, we create meaningful connections and meaningful opportunities.

A story defines the trajectory of a group of people who face conflicts in order to achieve transformation. Think of your characters—you and the people who work at your business—as the captain and crew of a ship who must navigate through the rocks, reefs, and storms of business to bring resources back to a series of safe, profitable ports. For your story to hold water—for your ship to proceed without going aground in the shallows—the conflicts and the people in your story must authentically reflect the values, needs, and conflicts of the people reading the story. Your ship is out there facing rocks and storms because you’re bringing back whale oil or defeating an enemy navy or trading goods or claiming new territories for them.

Anyone who goes to work every day knows that what happens behind the scenes on your ship is invisible to the people who use the results of your sailing expedition. Customers who buy your headache medication have no idea what headaches you faced developing your product, testing it, dealing with regulatory and compliance issues, coping with competition, designing packaging, contracting with a manufacturer, getting distribution, launching an advertising campaign, and establishing a customer service desk. All those harrowing adventures at sea are part of your story but not theirs. As far as they’re concerned, what you deliver to them is magic—the fourth element of story—and the only product worth selling. The customer’s story is that they swallow a little white pill and their headache goes away. They sit in their Lexus or Mercedes and feel prosperous.

And this is where mission statements routinely get bungled. There are two interconnected stories at play: One story is yours—you have a ship to steer and obstacles to navigate around. The other story is your customer’s—they have a headache and they want someone to wave a magic wand and make it go away. They may not care about your story, but you have to care about theirs. Your mission to run a tight ship that can survive any storm is about you. A strong mission statement tells the story of how your story helps their story.

Does your mission statement tell the authentic story of how your business understands the person reading it? Visionary business leaders understand that profit is a by-product of solving customers’ problems. If your mission is simply to make money, customers will infer that you regard their interests as secondary.

Does your mission statement make bold claims about the standards your customers can hold you accountable for? Anyone can anchor their ship behind a tropical island and sit there sipping margaritas while claiming to be “fighting monsters.” Customers respect companies who make it their mission to “bring back the head of the Minotaur.” Smart companies use those standards to challenge themselves. Nothing focuses productive, creative energy like a well-defined goal. Nothing builds loyalty like accomplishing a stated goal. If your customer receives poor service, can they point out where your company has violated its mission statement?

Johnson and Johnson takes its mission statement seriously. They call it their “credo,” and it spells out exactly who (as in people) the company promises to be responsible to. It’s a relationship-builder—a promise to be trustworthy. The beginning of J&J’s credo states: “We believe our first responsibility is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services.” Its final responsibility—at the bottom of the page—is to its stockholders. J&J’s willingness to stick to their story at any price may well have saved their company.

In October of 1982, seven people in Chicago were reported dead after taking extra-strength Tylenol. An unknown terrorist had tampered with packages and put deadly cyanide into random Tylenol capsules. Following their pledge to protect people first and property second, Johnson & Johnson, conducted a national product recall—about 31 million bottles at a cost of over $100 million dollars. They halted all advertising for the product.

Once the product had been removed from the market, Tylenol products were re-introduced containing a triple-seal tamper resistant packaging. J&J became the first company to comply with the FDA mandate for tamper-resistant packaging. And they promoted caplets, which are more resistant to tampering.

Tylenol demonstrated that they were a relationship-worthy company, even though it was proven that the tampering had occurred after the product had left their hands. By sticking to their mission statement and upholding their pledge to be responsible to those “who use our products and services,” they were able to rebuild their relationships with consumers and return to profitability.

Customers don’t have relationships with companies; they have relationships with the people who run them. Does your mission statement explain the relationship you want to foster between the people in your company and the people who buy your products and services? Does your mission statement project relationship-worthiness? Will customers infer that enlightened, caring, visionary, human leaders run your business?

What is the passion that drives your business? Whether you’re curing cancer, easing pain, bringing hope, or making people laugh, the products and services you deliver must demonstrate that you’re driven by the same authentic values as your customers. Is your connecting point—the value(s) you want customers to connect with you around—relevant to the services you offer? Some patients want to connect with a healthcare organization that’s affiliated with their religious values, but it makes little sense to claim you’re a “Christian light bulb manufacturer.” We all care about the health of our planet, but if you’re an oil-drilling company claiming to be environmentally responsible, you’d better be prepared to deliver the goods.

How do you differentiate yourself? How does your mission statement reinforce your unique brand? If you claim that your goal is to “innovate the best technology products,” you’re not doing much to differentiate yourself from thousands of other companies that strive to do the same. Would your mission statement work just as well for your competitors, or is it a hat only your company can wear? Does your mission statement at least mention your organization’s name?

A mission statement is the visual equivalent of a logo. Powerful mission statements condense the relationship between your company’s story and your customers’ stories into a single, compelling statement that connects and engages. Does your mission statement let customers know that you can deliver the magic?

Look at the following mission statements from large corporations. Is each statement about their story or yours? Does the company make its understanding of its customers’ needs and values clear? Are goals stated for which the company can be held accountable or are the stated values just “feelgood fluff? ” Is the mission relevant to the company’s products and services or could it be used by any company in any industry? Could the mission statement be used just as easily by the company’s competitors? Does each statement inspire trust or cynicism? How has—or could—each mission statement benefit from an understanding of storytelling?

 

 
Here are mission statement storyfinding exercises. You’ll find lots of overlap, but consider each question separately. For example, the problem your customers have may be “cancer,” but what they buy from you may be “hope.”

• Our leaders and employees care deeply and passionately about_________________
• Our customers care deeply and passionately about___________________________
• We demonstrate that we are living up to our stated standards and values by_______
• We have accomplished________________________________________________
• We will accomplish___________________________________________________
• Our products, services, and people are better than our competitors’ because_______
• The physical, practical benefits of our products are__________________________
• The emotional, spiritual benefits of our products are_________________________
• Our company is unique because_________________________________________
• We empower our customers to_________________________________________
• Our customers have these needs and problems_____________________________
• Our customers need these solutions______________________________________
• We want our advertising, packaging, and products to inspire customers to think of us as _____________ kind of people.
• Our customers can believe what we say because_____________________________
• Additional questions about us that customers will like the answers to are__________

 

Your final mission statement won’t convey the answer to every one of these questions, but the exercise will reveal the meaningful criteria that your relationship with your customers is based on. Define those values, challenge your organization to live up to them, and profits will follow.

Most mission statements are short, but don’t let conventions about brevity force you to omit critical elements of your organization’s story. Look at Johnson and Johnson’s Credo or JetBlue’s Customer Bill of Rights for examples of long-form corporate commitment that build trust by offering accountability.

Smart businesses understand the power of storytelling. Make it your mission to find and share your authentic story. There’s no better way to connect and engage with people and opportunity, and there’s no more powerful way to make your work meaningful for you and your customers.