Whose Mission and Vision are You Living Out?

You were created for a unique purpose, something nobody else in the world can fulfill. The very combination of your DNA, place in history, and your experiences are unlike anything the world is yet to see.

As such, your employer or your clients cannot fulfill your purpose for you. This is not to say your employers’ values are meaningless and you shouldn’t work hard, the opposite! You should work even harder and with greater excellence when you realize: You are not only a vehicle for your company to make an impact, your company is a vehicle for you to make an impact. 

Your Employer

• • It is easy to get caught in the trap of replacing your values and significance with your employer. Or allowing your employers’ visions and values to become yours. Your work has dignity but your worth is beyond how you further your employer’s vision.

• • While employers espouse their mission and vision statements and communicate lofty goals, your soul and purpose belong to you. Remember, we are all imperfect people and corporations of made of imperfect people. Are you putting your soul into a corporation being defined by a CEO, its board, or other stakeholders?

• • What happens if the company makes a bad financial move or your department becomes de-prioritized? What if your company value sky rockets or your department becomes the strategic pillar for the company? You still need to maximize your talents and find ways to create impact.

• • At the end of a company’s life, it does not have to give an account of how it used its skills and talents. But you do.

Your Clients

• • Another easy trap to fall into is thinking service to your clients is your ultimate calling. Be careful! Markets change, moods and attitudes are easily swayed, and the court of public opinion is always open.

• • Service to clients, “customer obsession,” is a mark of excellence – but clients are as much part this fallen world as anyone and anything else. Can you stand firm and be unwavering in your values and principles in the face of customer or stakeholder demand and criticism?

• • Can your “truth” or your purpose be bent with money, reputation, or power?

“A little of folding of hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber.”- Prov 24:33

This is more than just money related. This is a way of thinking and believing. The “fool” as Proverbs would say, takes the easy route of adopting whatever reason and values are handed to them, whether from an employer or customers. If you trade the jewels of wisdom and love that God has given you, for the cheap rocks of money and influence, you are robbing the world and yourself of your full potential.

WWYD:

• • You love bringing financial stability & opportunity to your customers. Your company’s mission is “Earning lifelong relationships.” To drive revenue and demonstrate growth, you are being asked to add accounts, even if frivolous, for customers. You can reason the added accounts could become useful down the road.

• • A large contract comes through for your business, that could catapult your business into the region’s best-performing. The customer’s business locks low-socioeconomic groups into high interest, short-term loans.  You can reason if you don’t someone else will, and anyways, you can’t control what people choose to buy.