One of the most important things you can do is to identify your team’s mission. And one of the biggest wastes of time is creating a mission statement that isn’t used.

An earlier post of mine, “How to Write a Mission Statement in 5 Steps,” explains what a mission statement is and how to write one. But simply writing a good statement does not ensure it will be used. How you create it is as important as wht it says.

Avoid these six common traps to craft a powerful mission statement that provides guidance for strategic decisions, focuses your team’s energies, and increases their commitment, clarity, and trust.

Trap No. 1: Seeing this as an activity to complete

Approaching the idea of a mission statement as a task to be completed means that once you’re done, you move on to another task, and your mission statement gets filed and forgotten.

Instead, think of this as the process of surfacing important information that you need to guide your decisions.

 …