It's a question that professionals and companies have asked for ages. So, what's our mission statement? For anyone who isn't familiar with mission statements, a mission statement is a company's reason for being. Its purpose for being in business. It's why a company exists and why its people get out of bed each morning. While on the surface this sounds pretty important, there are thousands of crappy or, at least, generic mission statements that aren't worth the paper they're written on. One of the primary reasons for this is that most mission statements are written with jargon and buzzwords that don't mean anything to regular people—namely, your grandmother—or would make them simply respond with, "huh?" Most mission statements use a collection of big words generated in boardrooms by a diverse mix of people from a company. It's mission by consensus and it sounds it.

Companies do need a sense of itself, a sense of its purpose or the value it brings to the world. Employees need a rally point. Something to take up and run with. A simple idea expressed in ambitious (why go half-way?), easy to understand words that make it easy for employees to rally around, and differentiate your company from the crowd of countless invisible, unremarkable companies.

Can you guess the company behind the following mission statement?

XXXXXXXXXXXX provides its customers quality office and information technology products, furniture, printing values and the expertise required for making informed buying decisions. We provide our products and services with a dedication to the highest degree of integrity and quality of customer satisfaction, developing long-term professional relationships with employees that develop pride, creating a stable working environment and company spirit.

Who could this company be? Staples? Office Max? HP? Nope. Dunder Mifflin. The paper company from The Office. While the company is fictional, the lameness of the mission statement is very real. Filled with platitudes and generic buzzwords, the statement is strung together like a fake string of pearls. Professional and polished-sounding at first glance, but soulless below the surface. That's the point. Do you even need a mission statement like this hanging in your lobby? Don't think so. Instead of a mission statement, would companies be better off with something else to give them a sense of purpose or reason for being? Some believe in the power of a mantra over a traditional mission statement.

A mantra (or as some call it a "passion statement") works differently. It's shorter, simpler and way more emotional. It comes from the heart and immediately strikes a chord with employees and stakeholders. It's not a tagline, per se, either. Above all else, a mantra is personal, emotional and more interesting than a typical mission statement. After all, it's very hard to rally culture around a cause with a bland or boring statement. "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," on the other hand, is a pretty good mantra, which was cooked up only a few miles from 20nine.

Speaking of 20nine, do we have a mission statement to speak of you ask? Not exactly. At least not one that is called a mission statement. Our mantra is something that's probably never been written down, yet you can feel it in the culture, working style and the materials we create for ourselves. "Defy description" is short, simple and passionate. "Defy description" speaks to the belief that any idea that has ever changed the game or changed the world for that matter has somehow defied description at its inception. It was different. Original. Fresh. It connected existing dots in new and unexpected ways. It didn't fit conveniently into someone's prescribed box. After all, that's the surest way we know to be ignored. As a hybrid branding agency, 20nine strives to exist outside any prescribed box, so we push ourselves to create work that does the same thing for our clients. Our more complete mantra might be "to defy description in order to advance ideas that advance business…and the world."

Mantras can work when conceived in the right spirit and applied with style and grace. It's useful to look at a few great ones out in the world right now. NIKE's mantra is "authentic athletic performance." Whole Foods' mantra, described as its Declaration of Interdependence is "Whole Foods. Whole People. Whole Planet." Starbuck's mantra is "to inspire and nurture the human spirit—one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time." Grandma probably wouldn't have a hard time getting her head around any of these statements, now would she?

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