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course having a tool and using it effectively are two different things, so
there is more work to be done.

n How will we communicate the mission to all who have a role to
play in achieving it?

n How can we build their commitment?

n How can we gauge their commitment?

n How can we keep the mission before their eyes and in their minds
and hearts without them becoming habituated to it?

n How can we ensure that they refer to the mission when faced with
a difficult decision under pressure?

American corporations in particular, have, in the past, created a formal
acceptance of a new mission statement by holding some kind of social gath-
ering where the mission, writ large, is paraded before an applauding,
enthusiastic multitude of stakeholders prior to be signed by every
employee with due ceremony. If this seems over the top to you, consider, if
you will, the oft repeated and confirmed experiment summarized below.

Before looking at the research it might help if I add a word on this
matter of habituation and the mission. Our brains are wired to disregard
those things that are not of crucial interest to us at the time. If they did not
we would be overwhelmed with irrelevant information as was the unfortu-
nate Sherevski, a Russian “memory man” whose brain lacked this vital fea-
ture. “S” as he is called in the annals of psychology, could not manage a
simple task such as buying a pack of cigarettes. The merest hint of a desire
to smoke and his mind was filled with complete memories of every brand on
the market and every cigarette that he had smoked in his life. He simply
could not, under such a barrage of irrelevant information, step into a shop
and ask for a pack of his favourite brand. In fact he was incapable of having
a favourite brand. So our brains are doing us a considerable service when
they filter out the non-essentials. This “habituation” process is the reason
why anything that becomes routine becomes unnoticed after a while. So, for
example, if you have a picture on the wall for a longish period, after a while
you no longer notice its presence. Ironically, you are only likely to “notice”
it again if it is removed. A similar thing happens when you put your mission
statement on the wall in what used to be the style of Japanese corporations.
Soon nobody notices that it is there. Give it to your people on paper and the
same thing tends to happen. It “disappears” from consciousness. You need
to use your creativity to find a way in which your people will “rediscover”
the mission frequently so that they don’t habituate to it.

One of my clients used phrases from the mission on a random basis as
screen savers with some short-term success. Your challenge is to find a
better way, and believe me it will be no walkover. You are effectively taking
on millions of years of evolutionary development. But research into psy-
chology may help. A variable or frequent stimulus is more noticeable than
a stable one.

16 Key management questions