Several of my clients have wrestled with this issue.

Some feel the overarching organizational mission doesn't clearly address the team's role. A department-specific mission might give employees more clarity.

Others worry that creating yet another statement adds confusion. Employees already have enough corporate statements to memorize.

Department mission statements are fairly common. An informal LinkedIn poll revealed that 41 percent of people worked on a team that had its own mission.

So what's the answer?

There are two situations where I've seen a department-specific mission statement work well. There's also one situation where it's not a good idea.

What is a mission statement?

Here's a quick primer on mission statements before we dive in. My preferred definition of a mission statement is this:

A mission statement broadly describes what an organization does.

Its purpose is to serve as a True North that points employees in the right direction when they get stuck or need guidance. This goes for how executives set strategy, how managers execute tactics, and how individual contributors perform their daily work.

For example, Osprey is a company that makes backpacks and other gear to help people enjoy the outdoors. Its mission focuses on that big picture:

We relentlessly innovate to ease your journey and inspire adventure.

You can see exactly what Osprey is trying to achieve from the picture below. I’m hiking on a remote mountain trail that overlooks the desert while wearing an Osprey backpack.

The best customer-focused mission statements share three characteristics:

Simple and easy to understand.
Focused on customers.
Reflective of the company today as well as its aspirations for the future.

There’s sometimes a bit of confusion between missions, visions, and values. You can explore the difference between those different statements here.

Let’s move on to the big question. Does your team need to create its own mission statement?

Reason #1 to create a team mission

The best reason to create a department-specific mission is your organization doesn't already have one.

It's hard for an entire organization to create a service culture if the CEO doesn't support it. That makes it necessary for customer-focused leaders to focus on controlling what they can control. In many cases, that means working with their department to create a team-specific mission.

One leader I worked with helped her team develop its own mission. The team used the mission to guide its daily work and soon became known for outstanding service. Other departments in the organization began asking the leader for help transforming their departments, too.

Unfortunately, executive leadership never fully committed to service culture. It remained up to individual departments, so my client made a good decision.

Reason #2: the corporate mission is fluff

Some organizations have mission statements, but those statements are so full of corporate buzzwords that they lack any meaning.

That's a trickier call.

I worked with an organization that had a mission like that. Yet buried in all that fluff was some real clarity. You just had to dig for it.

The CEO didn't want to change the mission, so we created a campaign to help employees understand the true meaning. The goal was to get each person in the company to answer three questions:

What is the mission?
What does it mean?
How do I personally contribute?

The campaign worked well. Most employees understood the mission and used it to guide their daily work, and the company enjoyed a period of sustained growth.

Another organization had a mission that was so fluffy it didn't mean anything. In that case, I helped a department create its own mission. The team used the mission to guide their work and was able to make a far bigger impact than it could have without a mission.

Why your team does not need its own mission

There are many cases when leaders should avoid the temptation to create a team-specific mission statement. Adding yet another statement when it’s not needed invites confusion for your employees.

Leaders often tell me they don't see their department's specific function reflected in the mission statement. Here are just a few things I've heard:

"It doesn't talk about accounting."
"We're IT, so we have a different mission than the organization."
The mission statement mentions customers, but not internal customer service."

Sound familiar?

I recently advised a client wrestling with this same challenge. They didn't see their function articulated in the organizational mission. Yet they ultimately decided not to create a separate mission.

It was a good decision, for several reasons.

First, the organizational mission was a good one. It clearly spelled out True North for all employees. Adding a team mission would just create confusion.

Second, my client realized a lot of their work required coordination with other departments. The organizational mission addressed what every employee should be doing, and was often used as an arbiter when disagreements occurred.

Finally, whenever my client's team talked about customer service, their stories aligned perfectly with the organizational mission. While the organizational mission didn't mention their team specifically, it really did align with their work.