Friday, May 06, 2022
Art Reflects Life. So Should Your Mission Statement
Butts In the Seats: Scott Walters made a Twitter post yesterday that suggested organizations start their existence with a Quality of Life Statement rather than Mission Statement or Values Statement. Intrigued about where he was going with this, I popped over to his blog post on the subject. He starts with a brief criticism that non-profit mission statements are usually so broad they are meaningless and pretty much interchangeable with those of other organizations.
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4 comments:
This was a new concept I have seen done in the industry, and I completely agree with Scott Walters- businesses and organizations should have a quality of life statement rather than a mission statement. It is so bizarre to me that mission statements are often these grandiose sentences that use complex buzz words to drag in employees and audiences. After reading this article it makes me feel as though such mission statements are quite manipulative, to make the employee feel like they owe something to the company, causing this snowball effect to where people in theater only have time for their work, nothing for their family, friends, or social life. I feel as though a quality of life statement would now attract more people as it guarantees a balanced life of employees. A company that value a healthy lifestyle for their employees will definitely get a better work ethic and output from them.
There are a lot of companies out there who will just pick a generic statement and then believe that everything that they do under Diversity Equity or Inclusion can fall in line with that statement. It's always a stretch and I love the mental and word gymnastics people have to play to get there, but Quality of Life Statements and DEI efforts and mission statements all sound like so much. I don't quite know what a mission statement is supposed to be for, but I do know that when the article was writing about how theatre companies kind of disregard family lives and relationships has always been true and sad to me. It's not fair that I can't spend time with my family because this other family wants to watch A Christmas Carol for the 12th time in their life. It shouldn't be a high priority, but I feel like there could be a lot of retention in workers for companies if they focused on helping their employee's living their life while they work for them.
Mission statements are usually the last thing that I read about any company, and theaters are no different. I agree with the article when it says that they're roughly all the same with just different combinations of words - it's a template that works, but it's just kinda there. Nobody really pays attention to it, and the purpose of the mission statement therefore becomes meaningless.
I love this idea of QoL statements. In today's labor market, there is a massive push happening by job-seekers for a better work/life balance and less hostile work environments. People are simply refusing to take jobs that don't meet those demands as they realize their worth, as well as the worth of their time. A true QoL statement does wonders for promoting a more equitable workplace that people actually want to be hired into. I just hope this trend takes off more as time goes on - it's high time we started pushing for our rights as laborers.
I love mission statements! I think the idea that your mission statement must reflect not only your company but the world around it is so integral to creating good art and just a good working atmosphere in general. I love Walters’ work on this. There are five points in total that Walters cites and comments on similarly. Now as we move into a next normal environment and recognize the need to do better in serving our community and meeting diversity, equity and inclusion, even established arts organizations would do well to use these questions as guides to their introspection. While QoLS are focused on a family/organization’s internal members, Walters implication that the resulting conversations should inform external facing statements of mission and values that reflect the specific existence of the arts organization is valid. Even if you don’t go through the practice of answering questions to develop a quality of life statement, a mission statement should grow from the reality of who you are rather than from a boilerplate form.
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