Here is a typical mission statement for a bank: “We will be the preferred provider of targeted financial service in our communities based on strong customer relationships. We will strengthen these relationships by providing the right solutions that combine our technology, experience, and financial strength. Our goal is to create customer loyalty, shareholder value, and employee satisfaction.” For the sake of discussion, we will call this Exhibit 1. We are not sure that this is better than the estimated 8% of banks that have no mission statement, but we can tell you that everyone on the committee that came up with that mission statement felt included. In this article, we look at what not to do, offer some suggestions on how to create an effective bank mission statement and then reveal what we think is the best bank mission statement available.
The Mission Statement Complexity Syndrome
Exhibit 1, in our estimation, covers about 75% of the banks in America today. This type of mission statement takes a series of goals and concepts and strings them together. There is nothing wrong with it. All the goals are noble, and logically it’s clear.
The problem is that it is not clear emotionally. At an emotional level, you most likely fell asleep right around the words “targeted financial services.” The triumvirate of goals – customer loyalty, shareholder value and employee satisfaction – are often at odds with each other and even when they are not, it is hard to figure out which should have priority.
This is rule one of mission statement creation – it should serve a purpose. A bank’s mission statement should be the guiding principal and litmus test that shapes all action and thoughts. When you string together words such as “We will strengthen these relationships by providing the right solutions that combine our technology, experience, and financial strength,” the principals and test become meaningless. It is good that this bank isn’t going to provide the “wrong solutions” and we are sure the bank also meant to include the fact that it also combines capital, wisdom, enthusiasm, etc. to strengthen those relationships.Our point here is why put together a list of attributes unless you mean it and it does something to help drive decisions?
The Mission Statement Vagueness Syndrome
Some banks over-correct and create such a simple mission statement that it is rendered pointless. This will be Exhibit 2 and makes up an estimated 5% of bank mission statements. Our favorites in this category – “Our vision is to be a better bank,” “Our mission is to put you first” and “We want to be your trusted partner.” Again, there is nothing wrong with this approach, and we love the aspirational nature of the statement, but we are not sure what this means. This type of statement connects emotionally, but not logically. It is not conveying any information. It is not instructional or guiding in any manner. This type of mission statement is so simple, it borders on ineffectual.
The Mission Statement Worthlessness Syndrome
Then there are about 10% of the banks that have mission statements that you can tell took them less than five seconds to come up with. They are either completely meaningless or so non-aspirational that they are effectively meaningless. In this category, our favorite is from one NY bank – “We will meet the needs of consumers and small businesses in the city of New York.” This is a pretty low bar and we are not quite sure why this bank doesn’t just slim down to a single ATM and call it a day.
The Mission Statement Obviousness Syndrome
Your bank should stipulate, that everything you do will be honest, accurate and with integrity. It should also go without saying that you will treat everyone with respect and dignity.
These should be building blocks for life, and if they are to go in a mission statement, it should probably be for Ms. Boyer’s 3rd-grade class. If you really feel the need to include those things in your mission statement, then you should probably put some more energy into your hiring practices. We know not every employee will adhere to this stipulation, but if they don’t, putting any of this into a mission statement isn’t going to matter.
Where Banks Go Wrong
Most banks are well intentioned and try hard to come up with an effective mission statement. It is admittedly hard work. The single biggest issue that occurs is that banks don’t know who they are writing for. As a result of not being clear on the audience, banks go down the Exhibit 1 path and want to include everyone from the customers to the shareholders and some throw in their regulators, community, and vendors for good measure.
To be clear, you want to write your mission statement from the point of view of the employee. They are the only ones that care AND are in a position to affect change. No investor ever made a buy, sell or hold decision based on a bank’s mission statement. Regulators don’t care as you have never seen a bank criticized for not having a statement; vendors will do business with you regardless; and, your community is stuck with you.
Customers may care about your mission statement, but they are near-powerless to affect change. A good, customer-centric mission statement may help in the sales process, but marketing material is the better place to express that view. A mission statement shouldn’t help the customer decide what to do, it should help the employee.
Putting the Shareholder First
Many banks have a mission statement that reads something to the effect of: “Our mission is to enhance shareholder value by making each of our operating units a driving force towards providing shareholders with a suitable rate of return on their investment.” This is a good clear statement, written from an employee’s perspective but we feel places too much emphasis on the shareholder who is arguably the least important aspect of the bank’s value equation, and similar to “operating with integrity,” this is probably also a given.
How to Write a Mission Statement from the Employee’s Perspective
If you are one of the rare banks that use the employee mission statement, our hat is off to you. The bank that has this statement, in our opinion, is near-perfect – “Our mission is to become the #1 ranked employer of choice by [referenced local newspaper].” This statement is clear, simple and written from the employee’s perspective. It also lets the employee know how important they are, which we think is probably the most important aspect of a bank’s value equation.
This is a good statement, but not great. There is a problem.
This is a great mission statement for the board or management, but not for the whole bank. It is difficult for the average employee to go around making things better for other employees. Things like an office environment, compensation, strategy, and others are outside of the average employee’s reach.
An Effective Bank Mission Statement
It is the employee that most likely reads a bank’s mission statement, and they are already in the middle of their own universe by definition. As such, the perfect bank mission statement meets all the above criteria, but looks outward, from the employee perspective. A bank should absolutely put employees first, and if they hire and train right, customers, value creation, and shareholder return become byproducts.
As such, our view is that you should write a mission statement letting everyone know how important the customer is. That is why you are in business. At CenterState, we drive home this point with our mission statement: “At CenterState Bank, our mission is to meet the desires of our customers.” In similar fashion, we also like: “Bank of the James will be the pre-eminent financial institution through superior customer service.” Both these statements are clear, concise, allow employees to make decisions centered on meeting their desires or improving service. However, they both lack aspiration.
The Best Bank Mission Statement
In addition, to all the above, a bank mission statement should be an aspiration. This is why we really like US Bank’s, in fact, their whole new employee orientation page is one of the best in the industry (HERE).
We also like the half-dozen banks that have similar statements to our favorite:
“Our Bank will delight the customer with ever interaction.”
It is simple, clear, logical and is packed with emotion. It puts the customer right behind the employee in importance and makes clear what every employee needs to do on the journey leading up to and through the interaction. If there is a better bank mission statement, we would love to see it. Until then, hopefully, we have caused you to reframe how you think about bank mission statements and maybe, if we have delighted you enough, have motivated you to take another look at yours.
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CenterState Bank is a $5 (soon to be $6.5B when existing mergers close), publically traded community bank in Florida experimenting our way on a journey to be a $10B top performing institution. Financial information can be found HERE. CenterState has one of the largest correspondent bank networks in the banking industry and makes its data, policies, vendor analysis, products and thoughts available to any institution that wants to take the journey with us. For more information about why we share you can go HERE.
