We’re On a Mission (and it’s not B2B)
Years ago, in a former life, a relatively new team member tentatively approached me to ask a question about our company mission statement. He shared with me how he was struggling to find anything motivational in the statement, and he wanted to know how I thought about it.
The statement in question was typical of the genre – bland, uninspiring, and safe, and most probably written that way intentionally. The statement focused on how our products affected the ability of our customers to produce their products. Ho-hum.
I admitted to him that I also found little inspiration in the statement. I suggested an alternative. What if each of us individually thought about the impact we could have, as one member of a team, on the lives of the people that depended on our collective success to make their way? How many children were being raised by parents that were part of our team? How many elderly parents were being cared for by members of our team? How many thousands of meals, rides to school, family gatherings, college educations, and safe, comfortable homes were the products of our success? If each of us, individually, put our best into it every day, the team as a whole would have that sort of impact.
His response was, “Now that’s a mission I can get behind”, and he walked away satisfied.
At Pendant we are mindful of very similar sentiments. Each person understands the importance of holding up their end, especially because we are still a small enough team to fully appreciate it.
But it’s even bigger than that. Every person with whom we come into contact is also on their own personal mission. If you are a project manager for one of our clients, for example, we aim to give purposeful attention to the impact of the quality of our efforts on your personal mission. We don’t always get it right. But we believe that it’s the right way to think about why we do what we do.
We don’t think of ourselves as business to business (B2B), because at the bottom line, every business is person to person (P2P).