Microsoft’s mission was to “put a computer on every office desk and in every home.”
Today Microsoft faces that most terrifying question, “Now what?”
Bill Gates is leaving to avoid that question, and an organization full of people in “guard my fiefdom” mode can’t answer it.
I wonder if a different mission like “Build the most desirable software in the world” would have served them better in the long run. Notice that MSFT’s original mission doesn’t say anything about people being passionate about the products. Putting software in offices means writing software that CIOs like, not software that users love.
Anyway, Google has the right idea with their mission statement: “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” because it’s a goal that can never be reached*. The world is just going to generate more and more information forever. Google will never run out of things to do.
This also works on a personal level. For example, my life’s mission is: “Make a living with creativity and help others do the same.” This can incorporate everything I do like sculpting monsters, drawing, blogging, and helping people build web sites. It gives me a specific direction without being too specific about how I have to arrive. There isn’t some arbitrary dollar amount I have to obsess about. Instead if I just work on my mission every day, I’ll succeed.
* Somewhere I read a quote by someone famous (a scientist I think): “If your goals can be achieved in your lifetime you aren’t thinking big enough” but I can’t find a definitive citation.