Do you have a mission statement?

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Do you have a mission statement?
Wed, 05-07-2003 - 12:39pm
Household mission statement


One day while contemplating about what I wanted for my family,

I thought:

"The company I work for has a mission statement, the church I

attend has a mission statement, the organizations I belong to

have mission statements, the family is an organization, why

doesn't it have a mission statement?"

Businesses have mission statements because they follow the rule

of "best practices." This means, whatever the biggest and most

profitable companies are doing in common, that must be the best

way of doing things in business.

Our family affects us more than any other organization; most

have no written mission statement.

Stop and think for a moment.

Does the company you work for have a mission statement?

What about the other organizations you belong to?

Now, do you have a written mission statement posted where all of

the members of your household can see it?


Why not?

I believe the answer is because our parents didn't have one up,

and we were never taught to create one.

Immediately after realizing this tragedy, I got on my computer

and began to write. I broke my household mission statement into

the following five categories:

I. Objective - the overall goal of our family.

II. Priority System - In this area I listed our priorities in

the order of importance (God first, Family second, and

Business third). There are other things but these are

the first three general areas in order of importance.

III. Organizational System - In this category I did a

professional organizational chart just like the one my

company has. Should our families settle for anything

less than what we have for our businesses?

It laid out the authority structure for our house.

It has God as the head, then me, then my wife and the

children below all diagramed out. This area sets the

order for the family.

While taking a shower one morning, in my mind's eye I saw

out of order signs swinging on houses. Many of our

houses are out of order because no order has been set.

If a machine is out of order, it doesn't serve its

function. No matter how many quarters you have in your

pocket, if a vending machine has an out of order sign on

it, you had better look for snacks elsewhere.

If an arcade machine or ATM has an out of order sign on

them, they won't serve their purposes. It is the same

with families. When parents and the children are out of

order, something in the family will not function


IV. Belief System - This expresses the religious and moral

beliefs of the family.

V. Destiny System - This explains the purpose for our family

and where we are headed long term.

Even though this all may sound fancy, I wrote everything on an

elementary school level so my children could understand it.

After I finished writing my first draft, I took it to my wife to

have her discuss changes so that we would be on one accord.

She read the entire document and didn't make any changes.

Our vision and belief systems blended and agreed perfectly.

Everyone will not completely agree on their mission statement

but that is the purpose of a written mission statement, so that

everyone will have one vision. When you have two visions you

then have "di-vision."

I signed the document as household President and my wife signed

it as household Vice-President. I then had it blown up and

laminated. We placed it on the wall right next to the front


Every time our children leave the house, they will know what our

house stands for. Whenever they bring friends over, the first

thing they will see is what the house stands for. When my

children return from school, the first thing they see is the

family mission statement.

Upon returning home, they will know instantly in their conscious

whether they behaved in a way that honors the family mission.

Every house has a different mission, know your mission, write

your mission, and post your mission.

A MountainWings Original by James Bronner

Avatar for guardedticker
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 05-07-2003 - 3:01pm
VERY VERY GOOD! THIS WAS EXCELLENT CHRIS! Thank you for sharing it with us.