Mission Statement killing the Mission

Management 101: If you don't have a stated mission statement then you can't have a strategy to accomplish your mission.

And if you don't have a strategy, then you don't have a way to EFFECTIVELY and EFFICIENTLY allocate resources. "Effective" is doing the right things. "Efficient" is doing things the right away.

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." - Lewis Carroll

And a related cartoon from the comments: http://tomfishburne.com/2011/01/mission-statement.html