The Power of Company Mottoes

Some good ones:

Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, which builds most large US warships: ""We shall build good ships here, at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good ships."

Microsoft mission statement through the 1990s: "A computer on every desk, running Microsoft software". (Slogan retired because mission accomplished.)

National Security Agency: "Anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer".

US Coast Guard: "You have to go out, but you don't have to come back."

So there I was. In the Army now. As a young adult I loved watching Stripes...the real US Army is nothing like that. In Stripes Bill Murray just got orders. In real life, you get orders and a commander's intent. When it came my turn to give orders, I learned that intent and vision were what people followed (assuming your troops have reason at all to follow the leader). Orders/plans are great, but people do best when they have something to rally around and fall back to for direction when everything else goes belly up (was going to use Aussie version, but not appropriate). Mottoes from a company mean almost nothing if they're not backed up by people who can grasp and believe in them. It's all about the leadership and the people who follow the leader, not the motto. Note: there are all kinds of leaders...don't always picture General Patton or Steve Jobs.

I think most mottoes and mission statements are there because someone thinks, or was told, they need one rather than because they actually have a mission.

So "Who Dares Wins", "Per ardua ad astra" and "Think Different" work because you can easily believe the group actually believes in it. It matters not whether you share the vision.

Things rapidly degenerate to sounding like they came from the Dilbert Mission Statement generator for most companies.

I like the motto for a US waste collection company that operates in the Vail, CO area: "Satisfaction guaranteed or your trash back".

At work we have a fairly long imperative, which is very nice but difficult to keep in mind at all times.

We also have a four-word internal "motto" of sorts which entirely encapsulates what we're aiming to do and is easily remembered at 3am when you need to make a critical choice. It's honest, and I think that's why it gets quoted so much.

On the other hand, after the expensive consultants and off sites result in a motto, what happens next? It's told each new employee during indoctrination/onboarding and then forgotten. Quick, what's your employer's motto? How about your last employer?

Effective mottoes and vision statements may be the result superior management, but they don't make management superior.

Is This Good for the COMPANY?

Linking to a subpage of Google's "about" site enabled the jab about the "real mission" being advertising, but the true mission statement is clearly laid out at [1], and certainly passes the 3AM-in-the-rain test: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

[1] https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/about/company/

Speaking of company mottoes this reminds me on this[1] talk I was at.

It was quit a interesting insight into a small open source company.

[1](https://media.ccc.de/v/emf2016-198-my-ubertooth-year#video&t...) at minute 36 ish.