On mission
Right now, more than ever, we don’t have the luxury of working the way we used to. With challenging business conditions on the horizon, the days of allowing things to “take the time they need” are over. Efficiency, intentionality, and focus on delivering outcomes are non-negotiable. Your role in this mission isn’t just about your job title, it’s about pushing the company forward.
Align with the mission first
When you take a job, the first thing you should do is evaluate the company’s mission. Do you believe in it? Can you get behind what the company is trying to achieve? If not, stop right there. No matter how appealing the role, the team, the responsibilities, or the compensation is, belief in the mission is foundational and must come first. Once you’re aligned with it, you can move on to consider whether the specific job, team, and environment fit you. But the mission comes first. Without that, you’ll either struggle or worse, you will find yourself succeeding in ways that ultimately hurt the company’s goals.
The mission is non-negotiable
Everything you do in your job role is in service of the mission. You didn’t join the support function to then serve the mission of building great products. You joined the mission to build great products, and you do that through your function. The same goes for every role in each department. The mission comes first, and your role is the function you use to deliver on it. It’s not the other way around.
If you joined your company thinking that you primarily signed up to be part of a specific team, and that your first duty was to your job role or expertise, you’re misaligned. The first thing you did when you joined was sign up to the mission of the company.
On mission vs. mission adjacent
Not everything you do at work is truly on mission. Some activities are mission adjacent, they feel important but don’t directly contribute to the company’s goals. Others are just off mission, despite seeming valuable.
For example, imagine someone rigidly following a process that actually damages the mission. Maybe a team is building tech because it’s interesting or cutting-edge, but it doesn’t drive towards a specific company goal. Or picture a meeting where people spend hours aligning their views without getting to a tangible outcome that directly supports the mission.
We’re not paid to spend time in off-mission or mission-adjacent activities, and there needs to be a sense of urgency to get out of them and back to delivering tangible results that move things forward in a meaningful way. Every hour spent on these distractions is time not spent on the mission, and that’s a direct loss of progress. Leadership needs to recognize when this happens and correct course immediately.
You are compensated to drive the mission
When you’re hired by a company, your compensation is tied to your ability to drive forward the mission. You may do that through your expertise, your title, your knowledge, or your skills, but you are not defined by those things. You’re brought on board to leverage your capabilities in service of that mission.
If you find yourself being opinionated about what the mission should be, you’ve confused the purpose of your role. It’s critical to evaluate whether the company’s mission aligns with your beliefs. If it doesn’t, it’s better to find a company whose mission resonates with you rather than trying to reshape the one you’ve joined.
This is particularly important for creative types, who may feel strongly about their personal convictions and think their role invites them to change the company’s mission. But the company is not a group of friends deciding where to eat lunch, it’s a focused business with specific deliverables.
Your job is to help execute that mission, not redefine it.
Staying on mission is non-stop
Falling off mission, even for a moment, costs us time we cannot afford to lose. Staying on mission isn’t a one-time decision, it’s a relentless pursuit. Every leader, every team, every contributor needs to be locked in and committed to this ongoing process of alignment, or risk being left behind.
The test is simple: can you draw a straight line from what you’re doing to the mission? If it takes three paragraphs to explain the connection, you’re probably off mission.