Writing business fiction

Visualize your mission

I just read an interesting blog piece by Tom Foster at www.managementblog.org. He wrote of someone who was having a tough time figuring out the mission statement for their company- a bread bakery. Gentle questioning eventually set off a light bulb.

“In the hallway is our mission statement, only it’s just a picture, of a steaming loaf of bread emerging from an oven door.”

I worked for a time as a defense contractor and the walls of our offices had many images of soldiers and high tech military hardware. However, the strongest statement of our mission occurred when I had an opportunity to visit an Army base and see Moms and Dads in their camouflaged uniforms with their families shopping at the Post Exchange. Nowhere else was the mission of what I did more clear. Sometimes a mission statement may be a picture or video. Include that in your briefing materials. It may prove as powerful to your company as it was to you.

posted by Joe @ 8:07 PM 0 comments

In the beginning- white space

I read somewhere that the only cure for writers cramp was writer's block. I hope that this conversation about converting corporate visions and direction into a strategic plan and getting the word out to the rest of the company is a success. Sometimes, the task is given to non-writing employees. Soemtimes, as part of a team, the corporate vision is not shared or the direction is actually many directions at one time. Using some sort of strategic "divining rod," you must work in a teaming environment, develop consensus and produce a document that will be pointed to whenever things turn gray and sometimes gathers dust the rest of the time. Let us make the journey from "I need you to write some sort of a strategic plan or something," to "I don't know how we could have gotten here without you and your strategic planning team."

posted by Joe @ 12:26 AM 0 comments