Here's why vague mission statements are worse than just being ineffective.

(video transcript)

I have a question—a little experiment. I asked my husband to paint the kitchen blue, and when I got home, the kitchen was blue. But I said, "Oh my gosh…" because when I said blue, I meant blue (holds up a light blue pencil). This is blue. But he did paint it blue (holds up a dark blue pencil)—just a different shade. So obviously, the problem was that I was too vague, because blue can mean many things.

The same thing happens to us at work. In fact, I’m guessing you’ve probably been involved with a company—maybe it’s your company, maybe it’s one you work for—and you’re trying to come up with a mission statement to show the world what your values are. And you come up with great words like integrity, empowerment, or exemplary customer service.

But sometimes we don’t know exactly what that means. So if I’m working for a company and they say, “We provide exemplary customer service,” does that mean I smile and nod when someone returns something they’ve already used for five years? I don’t know. What does it mean?

Let me give you an example. Last week, I took lunch to a friend. And I love this pizza place here in State College, Pennsylvania. It’s called The Cove, by the way. 

I called and said to the woman on the phone, “Medium pizza and a salad,” and she said it was around $25. I just made a comment like, “Oh, prices have gone up a bit,” and she, being kind and totally sincere, said, “Well, I think Papa John’s charges a little bit less.” And I was like, “No, no, no! I’m good. I’m happy to pay—I love your pizza.”

When I picked up the food and got to my friend’s house, they had thrown in a little box of desserts. I thought, “That was great. That was exemplary customer service.”

Then the next day I was talking to one of my girlfriends. Her daughter is a server at a very fancy restaurant and hotel here in town. She told me her daughter had been waiting on a woman who said, “I’m from out of town, and I’ve never had to deal with car issues before. My husband used to handle that kind of thing. I think there is something wrong with my tires.”

So my friend’s daughter—the server—went out into the parking lot, looked at the woman’s tires (they were bald), and gave her explicit instructions on where to go to get new tires, complete with directions and everything. Of course, the woman was thrilled and left her a big tip—but that’s not the point.

What I did there was give you two quick anecdotes about what exemplary customer service could actually mean.

If you’re working in a company and you need to express your values, the worst thing you can do is be vague, because people don’t know what you mean. Using a story or an anecdote is one of the best ways to demonstrate what you mean so that people understand what your values are.

My job at The Great Story Workshop is to help people become much better, more confident communicators by coming to one of my hands-on workshops, where I teach the magic of storytelling. So if you’re interested in clearly expressing what your mission statement is all about—so that the people you work with really know what your values are—just reach out

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