John Linton Did they end their 'fad' moment of fame in the 1980s? Did anyone other than HR/Marketing Departments and some high priced 'advisory agencies' ever get any 'value' from the publication of such things? Is anyone in business other than 'for the money' today - or ever in the past? When you think about it does any commercial company ever have any 'mission' at all other than to make as much money as quickly as possible? Or as El Sol might say - "My principal responsibility is to maximise shareholder value?"
I noticed on the back of the card of a recent visitor to our office that their company had, not a mission statement, but 'seven signals' which were:
recruit and retain the best
talk straight
empower and trust
continuously grow and improve
aim to be famous
play to win - think globally
have fun and celebrate
I thought they were good maxims (except for 5 and 7) and I think Exetel actually runs its business on those bases but are they worth putting in to writing and do they really 'do anything' for a company? I really don't know.
Back in my IBM days there used to be the single word "THINK" displayed in stair wells, canteens, reception areas, factories and, of course, in every office.
I am thinking about this 'mission statement' concept at the moment because I had a fairly long discussion with some people yesterday about Exetel raising some money to open an operation to sell services in the European Union. As the sort of money we would need to do that is trivial (less than $A5 million) the 'advisors' we were talking to about this said the money would most easily be raised via 'private placement' to a few of the 'advisor's' investment clients without the complexity of a public listing.
The 'story' that can be told about Exetel's commercial progress to date is 'impressive' enough in general terms to meet the requirements of such a raising and the outline EU plan and the 'research' behind it was not an issue - given that a lot more detail would be required but there was no problem with the costings and sell ponts based on the current information that I provided.
We covered, in planning detail only, the ROI scenario and the eventual upside of the shareholding exit strategy via public float (this being, in general terms, a 'mezzanine investment'). There were no major issues with any of the concepts or with any of the likely scenarios based on what Exetel had done to date and what it was likely to do over the comng two years. The rationale that the current FTTN fiasco made it difficult for a company like Exetel to invest any 'surplus' of its time and management efforts in Australia over the next two years was also more easily understood than I would have thought prior to the meeting.
The only issue was the "why" - which was translated into what is the company's overall objective in being in business at all that would persuade entities to invest in the EU/Exetel venture?
Making a better ROI for the investors than anything else available to put money into with a higher likelihood of success was not going to be a 'clincher' apparently at this low level of money handling - people who did this sort of investing wanted a massive, and admittedly 'blue sky' upside, or they wanted to feel really good as well as get the highest possible return on their, in this instance, trivial amount of money. They needed, as one person put it, "an aren't I wonderful" dinner party topic.
The concept of lowering costs for Australian users of communications technology was dismissed without a second thought as was the concept of generating profits that would be used to protect and regenerate Australia's endangered fora and fauna. I didn't bother, after that, to mention investing in raising opportunity levels in third world countries.
So what is Exetel's "Mission Statement"?
I have no idea beyond the reasons we started the company which was to earn a commercially sensible return on the money we invested while helping lower the costs of communications for those Australian customers who chose to use our services.
It looks like if we are to do the 'EU Thing' (as someone I was talking to yesterday referred to it) we are going to have to use our own money or forget about it as I can't bring myself to make 'blue sky promises' and I'd find it almost as hard to invent some reason we are in business that isn't what has already been dismissed.