Last month, we examined how defining your corporate mission is critical to your daily duties and the way you and your staff go about fulfilling them each week. "It starts when you write it down," I said—not just to have something to hang on a wall, but a creed to live by, a standard to aspire to and a pledge to your clients. Properly implemented, Mission Statements impact both clients and staff:
Staff
The hiring process is an interesting one, in that you and your candidate are interviewing each other for compatibility, common values and traces of what each of you is seeking. In preparation for a rare third interview, I've had great success giving this "homework assignment" to any candidate in whom I sensed a spark, an entrepreneurial genome and a teachable spirit: "Please read Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation," and write me a two-page Personal Impact Statement. Tell me how it affected you—perhaps how you related it to candid discussions with your grandparents about WW II and its aftermath. And then give me a sense of how you'd apply what you learned to your duties here…"
Every time I've done this, the exercise has separated the "nice book" shoulder-shruggers from the "Wow—thank you for asking me to read this!" personally impacted candidates. This latter group had had a revelation about our mission—far beyond the words they'd first read on the wall in our lobby—and wrote about the privilege it would be to serve such people and their now-retiring children. All of us should aspire to venerate our clients, and to be respectful, especially in the little things, for as we adjust our inner attitudes, all the Big Stuff—suitability/compliance, community reputation and, yes, even income—all naturally take care of themselves.
