JUST A MISSION ?! LEARNINGS FROM THE SUCCESS OF AN UNDERDOG AT IPL-5

MISSION- A SENSE OF PURPOSE THAT ENERGISES AN ORGANISATION..

                                             

“ One word comes to my mind. It is ‘Mission Accomplished’ . We believe we had the team to win and we achieved it! --   Gautam Gambhir, Captain of Kolkatta Knight Riders, after winning IPL-5 in May 2012, from being mere pushovers in the earlier editions of the tournament.

Effective mission statements commonly clarify the organization's purpose and also ultimately seeks to justify the organization's reason for existing.-  - Wikipedia,,

 KKR team owned by the legendary Shahrukh Khan and captained by the astute  & competent Gautam Gambhir, set out on a mission to outclass formidable competition in the form of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore  & Chennai who were much more star packed and seen as favourites to win the competition.

The strategy formulated involved a number of elements some of the key ones highlighted could be:

a)      Selection of a balanced team to strengthen the various departments through strong performers ( not stars ,,)

b)      Disciplined and no nonsense approach, no talking to media, no revealing of game plans and strategies

c)       Thorough study of the pitches and atching the team for each match with relavant players

d)      Back key players and use them tactically in each match to keep the opposition guessing and unsettled

e)      No undue emotional outbursts and excessive behaviour on and off the pitch,

f)       An undue faith in the team members and in the Captain by the management, IT IS THE COLLECTIVE STRENGTH OF THE TEAM THAT COUNTS AND NOT INDIIVIDUAL BRILLIANCE.

g)      Garner strong home support through diplomatic handling and right words at right time

h)      Fight till the very end in each match and never give up and above all

i)        Believe in themselves and never be intimidated by the more formidable opposition teams..

                It is indeed possible that every team that competed in the IPL have a mission statement exhorting them to go for the gold! But is it just enough to have a mission statement and not follow up with a clear strategy that accompanies a clear mission statement which the entire organisation internalises and swears to follow with their hearts?

 It is a general practice for every professionally runs organisation to have a mission statement at the outset outlining three major aspects of the company’s functioning namely:

The products and services provided, the target markets addressed and the distinctive benefits that they would strive to offer to their customers.

By defining clearly, the purpose of the business, the mission statement should lead the organisation to a strong and calculated strategy, instil the right values, set the guidelines to the business in the form of business rules and behaviour of the members of the organisation.

Eminently Successful Organizations , Spectacularly failed organisations and even moderately successful  organisations have spent lot of top management time, money and effort to come out with inspiring mission statements with a firm eye on the Vision encompassing their organisations.

Let us examine some mission statements:

Apple:  Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.

Dell:  Dell’s mission is to be the most successful computer company in the world at delivering the best customer experience in markets we serve. 

Facebook:  Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.

Google:  Google’s mission is to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Microsoft:  Microsoft’s mission is to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.

Skype:  Skype’s mission is to be the fabric of real-time communication on the web

Yahoo!:  Yahoo!’s mission is to be the most essential global Internet service for consumers and businesses

YouTube:  YouTube’s mission is to provide fast and easy video access and the ability to share videos frequently

Walmart :   We save people money so they can live better.”

A well written mission statement most often explains the differentiation of the company’s products and services with respect to the competition and creates a magnetic pull on the target customers.

While a good mission statement is simple to understand and causes the stakeholders to come together and energises them, very often we see mission statements being too long, generic, disconnected with the sense of purpose, core strength and passions of the organization. Such statements confuse people and end up getting disconnected and lead to a lack lustre work environment and lead to eventual failure of organisations.

Let us look at mission statements of some failed companies:

Lehman Brothers:  Our mission is to build unrivalled partnerships with and value for our clients, through the knowledge, creativity and dedication of our people, leading to superior results for our shareholders.

Enron:   Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.

While the mission statement of Enron is too general and non communicative any specific goal or purpose, the one of Lehman Brothers seems reasonably well defined.

It shows that having a good  Mission Statement is alone not enough, but the entire organisation has to believe in it and resonate with the purpose defined as one entity for it show the desired results and this should continue for ever. The moment the organisation and the top leadership gets out of sight of this, trouble is indeed round the corner.

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