TSR #10: The company compatibility quiz
Is your personal mission aligned with your company’s?
4 minute read
What's in this newsletter:
Tales from the pizza shop
What is mission alignment?
Why it’s important
One actionable exercise you can do with your team
Tales from the pizza shop
I grew up doing a lot of random jobs, and I enjoyed them all.
Well, most of them...
I worked in a pizza shop, sold soda at music festivals, I even delivered flowers for a summer.
Side note: Never hire me to deliver flowers, I was really bad at that job…
Then I went to college and entered the “real world”.
I worked in personal banking for 2 years before moving to the creative department at a record label (very logical career move, I know).
I learned two things from this transition:
“Real world” jobs don’t make you a more successful person
“Real world” jobs won’t always make you more fulfilled
I was actually much more fulfilled at the pizza shop than I was at the record label.
I chalk this up to a few reasons:
At a pizza shop, there is a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day when you’ve fulfilled all your tasks and the job is 100% complete.
It’s easy to build camaraderie with your coworkers over things that aren’t work related.
But the biggest reason?
I aligned with their mission: make every person’s day a little better.
What is mission alignment?
Mission alignment is when what drives your values matches how your company wants to show up each day.
This doesn’t mean agreeing with the mission statement of your company...
It means that what you would choose to do everyday, even if you didn’t get paid for it, is exactly what your company needs from you to succeed.
Why it's important
Mission alignment is important because it is action oriented.
The cross-section of individual growth and company impact needs to happen in action, not only through high level values.
What you get when you achieve mission alignment:
Ownership - individuals and teams take ownership because they share the same mission.
Motivation - if you feel ownership over something you feel responsible for its impact, and motivated to see that through.
Trust - if your team prioritizes the mission, whether that’s your own or the team’s, you can build and maintain trust
One actionable exercise for you and your team
Have a conversation with your team about individual vs collective mission.
Before the meeting
Send a pre-read (or Loom recording) including:
Company mission and how that translates to team expectations
Major goals the team needs to achieve in the next 3-6 months
What is standing in the way of those goals
During the meeting
Each teammate shares their individual values (e.g. creativity)
Discuss what drives those values (e.g. creating something vs solving a complex problem)
Define the overlap between what drives those values and your team goals
Act on it. What can each person focus on to work towards the team mission? What’s one way you can knock down what’s in your way?
After the meeting
Ensure there’s accountability, whether it’s daily check-ins on Slack or another meeting in a few weeks.
Enable each team member by looking for opportunities to work towards the team’s mission.
Support each other along the way, make sure you give as much (if not more) help than you ask for.
Try it out and let me know what you think.
