In light of Tesla's layoffs, I’m curious if you are guided by a sense of mission in your work? Does leadership connect your work to a larger purpose? Would our firms be better off if we had a mission to match the hours we put in? https://qz.com/work/1528263/the-risk-of-thinking-of-your-job-as-a-higher-calling/
From my experience, a higher mission is a good recruitment tool and something I cared about when deciding whether to take on a new opportunity... but the day to day reality is working for a company (or a project) with an amazing mission doesn’t drive job satisfaction - work/life quality, the people you work with, and the rewards tied to doing your work are what keep you motivated to ‘grind on’.
Totally agree. Well said
I feel zero sense of mission in my work. Never have. I’m a big believer in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs however and get my sense of purpose from my volunteer work and investing in my personal relationships. If I ever become passionate about audit work, I’d throw myself off of my roof
That’s why left audit and joined consulting , tad bit better
It rubs me the wrong way when leaders go over the top to create a “purpose” or a “mission” where there really isn’t one. They are all told to do it, but it rarely comes off as genuine to me and it’s pretty transparent.
I think the "mission" thing frequently gets misinterpreted by leadership.
What it should be is - connect your employees with a sense of ownership over their work, give them credit for the contributions they make, don't just quote sales numbers at them that mean nothing except that you, not they, just got richer. Make them feel invested in the problems you're solving or the product you're making by making them feel material to its success instead of just an interchangeable cog in a machine.
What it often gets executed as: awkward hashtags and pseudo-inspiring marketing that try to convince them that the company's success is their success with no tangible connection between the two.
My company’s mission aligns with mine, while I’m there. Our mission is to help other corporations make more money, and take some of that extra money for ourselves. My personal mission is to also take a fraction of that money home to spend on stuff I want. Perfect alignment.
Before defining a mission, I think a place to start would be setting clear boundaries of work we won’t do. For example the McK/BCG work in Saudi, tobacco, etc
You know this may be the total cynic in me but this post feels like a plant from Fishbowl which I totally get but it’s such a naive question.
Mission statements and values are as present as you make them in your day to day work. It it up to all of us to dissent if we detect the mission we signed up for being disregarded and that is to extent that we actually care. If you care enough to even pose this question you’d care enough to be an active proponent in making sure your work has enough meaning to give days of your life that you can’t get back in exchange. Just sayin’
Would agree, this popped up as a highlighted question in my feed when it had no real engagement
I think the reality is that the issues are systemic. The structure of public ownership drives the mission - profit and shareholder value. Any mission statements are practically always lip service. Different types of ownership structures such as cooperatives could possibly change this.
Like SC3 said - give people ownership - but literally do it.
Most firms (and practices) do have mission statements
(1) Yes, (2) sometimes, and (3) there should always be a mission tied to the hours, otherwise it’s wasted time.
Zero alignment between our mission statement that’s full of hyperbole vs. day to day ground level work. As a SM, I find myself blocking and tackling a lot of crap stuff all the time vs developing hard skills. None of this bubbles up to any lofty pie in the sky mission statement.
No, no, yes.
Smke'em if you got'em
Having a sense of mission always feels like bs until you go work for a company that doesn't have one. Believe me, any mission is better than none
Disruption. There tends to be a fatalistic perspective that change is bad yet inevitable so it can only mean the worst is yet to come. Accept it and pursue it.
As a federal practitioner, I feel like we're sometimes the exception here. I've worked on really cool projects to help prepare the government for various economic scenarios, improve programs that have tangible and easily quantifiable national security impacts, and implement substantive policies to change the way healthcare is provided to millions of people. Some within federal had less mission-oriented experiences, but honestly I can say I've felt like I made a real impact on every client I served and that I was proud of the work we did.
I'm about to head to a FAANG industry role, and as much as I'm excited for everything else, I think I'm going to miss helping millions of people through the mission-oriented work I used to do.
Leaving from Advisory as a C (2.5 years out of school).
Building a better working world. Hmmmmm....