Meaning Before Money

Author, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki gave a great keynote last night at The New Brunswick Innovation Foundation R3 Gala. Of the 10 steps he spoke about to increase innovation, I drove home thinking about Mantras.

Organizations will only thrive if people know what you do. This is what mission statements do. Good mission statements give direction to employees and customers/stakeholders. But they’re often long and obtuse. Guy said that a mantra doesn’t replace the mission statement, rather it tells you in 3-4 words exactly what meaning you (the organization) bring to the world. Everything then follows meaning, including money, not the other way around.

21inc has an okay mission statement - to develop and inspire New Brunswick’s new and emerging leaders. It’s okay because it’s direct. It’s only okay because it’s not inspiring.

We don’t have a mantra.

A mantra is not Nike’s “Just Do It.” That gives no direction to employees in the organization. Nike’s actual mantra is Authentic Athletic Performance. He gave the example of what not to do with Wendy’s. Wendy’s has no mantra and their mission statement is about innovation and partnerships. When has your burger ever been about partnerships? What it should be, he said, is “Healthy Fast Food.” (They just have to work on that "healthy" part.)

On the drive home I played with what our mantra could be. Something about leadership, entrepreneurship, aspiration, excellence, goals, achievement, place, youth, and community. Obviously that won't boil down to 3-4 words.

What I came up is this – Building Better Leaders.

We can provide context to support it with communication around our focus on young people, increase the performance of our companies, that leadership will power our province and region, make communities dynamic, etc. In the end, however, it all comes back to the core of what we do, building better leaders.