Mission Statements
I'm starring at a poster I kept from a former company. It was the grand accomplishment of a short lived CEO. I don't know why, but I really like to look at it, it always makes me feel good because I start laughing. It never really matters how life is, I think about that and I know I'm doing okay because I'm not that incompetent.
I was a lead engineer at the company and we had a little introduction barbecue to introduce our new CEO. I went out of my way to go introduce my self and shake the new guy's hand. I got a somewhat chilling response. “Hi I'm Ian, I work in engineering, it's nice to meet you. Welcome to our company...”
His response: “Oh..”
I can't explain why but I wasn't really phased by this, I was kind of let down and I called it his first strike but it wasn't upsetting. It wasn't a condescending “oh, bless your heart.” It also wasn't really an “oh? well I don't like to be bothered by the little people” kind of response. It was more one of shock, kind of like “oh?! I didn't know I had an engineering team.” As far as strike go I think of it like a foul tip.
What's more funny to me is the following work day we had an all hands meeting for him to get up and describe what his new regime was going to be like. He opened up by explaining how he used, has and was into “personal coaching” with like a life coach or something similar. I have nothing really against it but in my mind in undermined his leadership and really made the discussion more about him than the company. It was strikes 2 and 3 at the same time. It's not really good to have a CEO that needs leadership coaching or personal life coaching, you kind of need to know where you stand. And if the CEO does need that stuff, you certainly don't advertise that to the company. You never know when he might have a “breakthrough” and realize that what he really really wants out of life isn't to run some damn software company, but to groom dogs or become a massage therapist.
It became worse when I started telling people. Tate immediately and outright just started laughing when I told him and then asked if they guy happened to be shorter than average, as it turned out this CEO wasn't the tallest guy I had ever meet.
He locked himself up in his office for about 1/3rd of his tenure. He produced a mission statement, by himself, complete with a catch phrase and a set of values. He was fired shortly after its unveiling. It's not exactly the Guy Kawasaki 3 word mantra.
