© Franklin Covey Co. All rights reserved.
Building a Winning Culture:
Lead with Purpose
In Mumbai, India, a city of 17 million people, fast
food has a unique meaning. Every workday,
about five thousand "dabbawalas," or "lunch-
box people," deliver nearly a quarter-million
home-cooked lunches to workers around this
vast, tumultuous city —
at high speed and without error!
As Sarah Sturtevant writes in her Marketing
Masala blog, "The mission of the dabbawalas
is not couched in flowery words like so
many other corporate mission statements.
Their simple goal is to serve their customers
accurately and on time, every time." They also
have a unique value proposition: Unlike fast
food chains, they bring a hot lunch right to you,
no matter where you are.
People with a simple, unique, powerful mission
are the most engaged people. Yet the whole
notion of "mission" has produced a lot of
cynicism. There are two reasons for that:
1. Too many mission statements are
meaningless platitudes.
2. People in the organization don't live up to
the mission.
FIND AND ARTICULATE THE
VOICE OF THE ORGANIZATION
Say the phrase "mission statement," and many
people roll their eyes. Contests are held online
for the worst mission statement. The bronze
mission statement plaque becomes a target for
pigeons. According to Gallup, 70 percent of U.S.
workers are disengaged — unimpressed and
uninterested in their company's mission.
Why are most mission statements just
back room jokes? Because we're trying to
engage people's passions and talents in a
mission they have no passion for, and no
involvement in.
" Effort and courage are not
enough without purpose
and direction."
— John F. Kennedy
