I recently was asked to teach a group of students to write a business plan.
While pulling together the material, I came across dozens of mission statements that suck.
For example, from Bank of China:
Our Vision is:
To be customer’s premier bank
Our Mission is to:
Build customer satisfaction and provide quality and professional service
Offer rewarding career opportunities and cultivate staff commitment
Create values and deliver superior returns to shareholders
In case, we – dear readers – are in any doubt, they go on to say “The first letters of the initial words form “BOC”.”
This sucks. Let’s leave aside the glaring grammatical mistake. We’ll also discount the nauseatingly contrived practice of producing ‘neat’ acronyms or intitialisations. Mainly, it sucks because it’s insincere and plain boring. I don’t believe them and I’m not inspired to bank with them. Are you?
So, how did the big-wigs at BOC come up with this gem? Here’s Dan Heath’s – author of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
So, do your vision/mission statements suck?
