Liquid Leadership: Inspirational lessons from the world's great leaders

Chapter 4. SAILING BY THE NORTH STAR

"Where are we going lads? To the toppermost of the poppermost!"

JOHN LENNON (1940 – 80)

There is a very good chance that when you reach this chapter you give some serious thought to skipping it. Mission statements are often full of nonsense and are completely and utterly irrelevant.

Barry Gibbons, the former head of Burger King, captured this experience when he started working for the company. He arrived at the headquarters and found that the only piece of paper left in his office was the old mission statement hanging on his wall. "It was so full of crap and humbug," he said, "that there and then, I invented a new word to describe the language normally used in mission statements: 'crumbug."'

Missions are often ...