Family Mission Statement

Family Wellness from White77

“The first reference I found to a family manifesto was in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, which was published in 1989. A management consultant from Utah with a Harvard MBA, Covey often asked his corporate clients to write a one-sentence answer to the question, “What is the essential mission or purpose of this organization, and what is its main strategy in accomplishing that purpose?” Executives were usually shocked at how much their answers differed. Covey then helped them create a more unified mission statement.

Covey’s innovation was to encourage families to do something similar and create a family mission statement. “The goal,” he wrote, “is to create a clear, compelling vision of what you and your family are all about.” He likened the statement to the flight plan of an airplane. “Good families—even great families—are off track 90 percent of the time,” he wrote. What makes them good is they have a clear destination in mind, and they have a flight plan to get there. As a result, when they face the inevitable turbulence and human error, they keep coming back to their plan.”

This two-paragraph quote comes from an article I found from The Atlantic. Click here to read the full article.

I was researching family mission statements and came across this fascinating quote.

Here are some thinks to consider. I would love to read your comments about this topic:

• Do you have a family mission statement?
• What do you think is the purpose of your family (if you don’t specifically have a mission statement or even if you do)?
• What do you think about the idea of having a family mission statement?
• Do you think this concept could apply to couples/marriages, as well?