Jan 3 - Our Mission...did we actually accept it?
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Welcome to the first S3T newsletter of 2025! As we step into the new year, with its evolving economic and tech landscape, we're focusing on what's missing from our mission statements as well as our personal goals: a crucial lost ingredient. This ingredient makes the difference between true commitment vs purpose washing. Activity vs Impact. Character vs Charades. Once we add this ingredient, we have a far better chance of achieving what we want to achieve in 2025 and beyond.
In this Edition of S3T: Key Takeaways on Missions and Sacrifices 🌟
- 💡 Mission Without Sacrifice is Empty: Lofty mission statements abound, but true impact demands sacrifices—be it time, resources, or comfort. Without sacrifice, missions remain hollow aspirations.
- 🎯 Sacrifice Fuels Commitment: Meaningful goals require readiness to forego short-term gains, personal recognition, and even stability to achieve long-term, collective success.
- 🔄 Embrace Change for Growth: Letting go of old paradigms and embracing transparency, innovation, and agility are essential steps toward realizing transformative missions.
- 🤝 Accountability Over Charades: Uneven accountability within organizations hinders progress. True leadership involves owning responsibility and aligning actions with values, ensuring cultural integrity.
- 📖 Learn & Lead: Explore the S3T Change Leadership Learning Series for actionable strategies on resolving dependency challenges and fostering even accountability in your team.
✨ What are you ready to sacrifice in 2025 to make your mission a reality?
🔍What's Missing from Mission Statements - and Goals...
If you look at the mission statements of the world's corporations, they are generous, visionary, powerful:
- "We aim to build a better world — helping people live better and renew the planet while building thriving, resilient communities." - Walmart
- "We innovate every day to make the world a healthier place" - Pfizer
- "Nurture the limitless possibilities of human connection" - Starbucks
- "Improving the quality of life in the communities we serve" - Fidelity Bank
- "Make the health system work better for everyone" - UnitedHealth
(See 51 more mission statements here)
You can't help but think: Wow, if all of these companies were actually delivering on their mission statements, the world would be a healed and thriving place.
After all, these are the largest, most profitable, highly capitalized teams on the planet.
These companies possess enormous pools of talent, technology and assets. Their leadership is carefully selected, highly trained, and compensated higher than 99% of the world's population.
These companies leverage the most modern and powerful new technologies to ensure they are efficient and effective.
In addition, these companies have highly influential marketing, branding and government affairs teams - all capable of the most compelling forms of selling and persuasion. They have - more than any other entity - the ability to make their voice heard and make their influence felt.
Surely if this group decides to focus on a mission, then that mission is as good as done. Nothing should ever be able to stand in their way.
Yet year after year, what unfolds in the world is exactly the opposite of these corporate mission statements. Why?
Some will say it's because these mission statements are just stickers or aspirations, not destinations. Purpose-washing. While that certainly could be true in a few cases, it can't possibly be the only, or even the dominant explanation.
Those same companies typically have ethics officers, and spend significant sums training their employees on the importance of culture, vision, mission, impact. In addition, many of the talented employees themselves are very passionate about the mission, and have plenty of options to go somewhere else if they feel like the mission isn't being taken seriously.
Maybe there's another more fundamental reason why we are not seeing more progress. This more fundamental reason would apply at either the organizational level and the personal level.
Let's take this down to a personal level. You're probably a very sincere, capable person. Why didn't you achieve what you wanted to achieve in 2024? Why didn't I?
Here's something for us to think about:
Mission without sacrifice is meaningless
Recently I heard someone talking about annual goals - and they made a really good point: "Don't just write down your goals. Write down what you're willing to give up in order to achieve them."
There is no mission without sacrifice. If you haven't decided what you'll sacrifice for your mission, have you actually embraced that mission?
This applies whether you are personally setting your purpose and objectives for this year, or whether you are part of a group setting the mission of an organization.
When we display our Mission and Vision statements in town halls and team meetings, the slide right after that needs to say, "And here's what we're willing to sacrifice in order to achieve that mission."
What stops capable individuals and companies alike from having the impact they want to have? Not being ready and willing to make sacrifices. When I set out to do something, whether I realize it or not, I'm deciding to not do some other things. I'm deciding to give up some things. Or to defer or de-prioritize some things.
The same is true for organizations. Without sacrifice, there is no meaningful mission. And there is no realistic way to achieve the mission.
True power is fueled by a level of commitment that is ready to make sacrifices and do whatever it takes to achieve the mission. This level of commitment and readiness is important both in the time of preparation, the time of execution and especially during times of crucial decision-making.
If ultimately everything we do boils down to risk averse hedging, then we at least owe to the world and to ourselves to write an honest mission statement that reflects our true intention: "We are here to protect ourselves for as long as we can and make others sacrifice instead of us".
Every meaningful mission ever undertaken, required significant sacrifice. So what are some of the sacrifices we should be prepared to make?
Sacrifices that will enable a person or an organization to achieve your Mission:
- Sacrifice Short-Term Gains for Long-Term Impact. Be willing to forgo immediate profits or benefits to invest in initiatives that create long term sustainable benefits and drive toward your target outcome.
- Sacrifice Individual Recognition for Collective Success. Shift focus from personal credit to team achievements. Work together to make sure that the mission benefits from strong collaboration and shared leadership.
- Sacrifice Efficiency for Inclusion. Accept that involving diverse voices and perspectives may take more time, and may feel like 'losing control', but it will ultimately lead to more comprehensive understanding of the problems to solve, better decisions, and much better outcomes.
- Sacrifice Resources for Innovation. Be ready to allocate time, money, and energy toward untested ideas that could advance the mission, even with uncertain outcomes. This is often the biggest challenge for leaders: being willing to invest in something that is not guaranteed.
- Sacrifice Certainty for Experimentation. Embrace the unknown and be willing to take risks, acknowledging that some experiments will fail but pave the way for breakthroughs. This may mean you won't get the validation you'd get if you stuck with the "tried and true."
- Sacrifice Comfort for Transparency. Commit to open, honest communication and questioning even when it involves difficult truths that challenge the status quo, or the accepted conventional wisdom. Be willing to be challenged.
- Sacrifice Old Paradigms and Prepare for New Ways. Let go of legacy practices or outdated business models that hinder progress toward the mission. Invest time in preparing for the inevitable oncoming changes.
- Sacrifice Personal Time for Collective Purpose. Dedicate time to causes and initiatives beyond one's immediate responsibilities to contribute to broader impact. This is tricky. We're conditioned to "not bite off more than we can chew". But think about the implications if you just keep "chewing" and don't ever do take steps to move beyond your current status quo.
- Sacrifice Stability for Agility. Accept the discomfort of rapid change and adaptability as necessary for responding to dynamic challenges. Storming and norming can feel chaotic. But sometimes it's necessary in order to make traction toward your mission.
- Sacrifice Complacency for Responsibility. Move beyond "good enough" and take ownership of driving meaningful change, even in the face of inertia or opposition. Think about where you're "staying in the pocket" vs pushing yourself and taking on stretch goals that make real progress toward the mission.
By embodying these sacrifices, individuals and organizations align their actions with their aspirations, ensuring that their mission statements are not just lofty ideals but living commitments to create a better world.
Summary: Character vs Charades
The ability to achieve meaningful impact, whether as individuals or organizations, hinges on a willingness to make sacrifices. Every mission requires you to choose:
- what to give up,
- what to defer, or
- what to de-prioritize.
Without sacrifice, a mission is merely a statement with no realistic path to success. True power lies in the commitment to do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, though preparation, execution, and crucial decision-making. If actions are ultimately driven by risk-averse hedging, this will impact the character of the company, and its culture will be little more than a set of charades.
History shows us that every meaningful mission has required significant sacrifices. The question for us here at the beginning of 2025 is: What are we individually ready to sacrifice to achieve our goals? And what are we collectively ready to sacrifice to achieve our mission?
Change Leadership Learning Series: Addressing issues related to uneven accountability
Continuing the S3T Change Leadership Learning Series, this week we are learning how to address a common flaw in organizational cultures.
If you are involved in projects that matter, you and your team probably spend a lot of time worrying about and dealing with dependencies. Simply put, a dependency is when one group needs something from another group.
Drama involving dependencies is a symptom of uneven accountability: one group feels the full heat of accountability for an outcome but is forced to rely on/wait for another group that doesn't feel the heat. This practical guide will help you resolve this challenge and inspire your organization to structure for more even accountability.
☂️Click here to access your learning segment for this week: Addressing issues related to uneven accountability
🧭 Additional Resources for Change Leaders
🗺️ S3T Panoramas
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📗S3T Playbooks
S3T Playbooks give you proven practical guidance for handling some of the more challenging aspects of change leadership.
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Opinions expressed are those of the individuals and do not reflect the official positions of companies or organizations those individuals may be affiliated with. Not financial, investment or legal advice, and no offers for securities or investment opportunities are intended. Mentions should not be construed as endorsements. Authors or guests may hold assets discussed or may have interests in companies mentioned.
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