Purpose statements that nobody can recite

Ask anyone in your organisation to repeat your purpose statement back to you, unprompted, and watch what happens.

If they can’t – not word for word, but in spirit, at least – it isn’t really a purpose statement. It’s just something that somebody, somewhere created, that everyone else read about once in an email, then never again.

A purpose only earns its place once people can carry it into a decision without checking the website first.