A few months ago, I received a notice that the Asia Heritage Foundation was having a big street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in DC on May 16.

Two things struck me about it. First, the Asia Heritage Foundation has a mission statement that has elements that seem like parodies of every overly broad, meandering, abstract mission statement that I’ve ever encountered in interminable “strategy sessions” in innumerable organizations – hours of my life that I will never get back.

The mission statement that particularly drew my attention:

To create bridges/linkages, dialogues and communications between different ethnic Asian and Pacific Islander (APA) communities as well as with the greater non-APA communities

First, doesn’t the combination of both the APA and the “greater” non-APA communities define what I’ve always just simple-mindedly called “everybody”? You know:  all of one thing, plus everything that isn’t that thing = everybody.

Next, they will create “bridges/linkages, dialogues and communications.” Quick – could you pass a quiz on the distinctions they are making between those three things? How many dialogues are not communications? Beyond that, what makes them think that at least some of the greater non-APA communities don’t already have communications? Why are they so sure that they will need to “create” them? How about leveraging the ones that already exist?

I have to assume that someone put a great deal of thought and effort into identifying the various elements that constitute their mission statement. But I have to wonder exactly how much went into how to combine those elements into this statement – or was it really just an aggregation of words that sounded like the sorts of things they’d like to be perceived to be doing? How does a mission statement like that clarify for all the members of the company what they’re trying to do together and inform each member of his/her role in it? If you can’t express the mission better than that, why have a mission statement at all?

Also, as long as we’re considering the selection of words, I was stunned that, for reasons that are never explained on their Web site, this annual “National Asian Heritage Festival” is called “Fiesta Asia.” Fiesta? Really? You’re having a heritage event for Asian and Pacific Islander heritage, and the best word you can find for this celebration of heritage is Fiesta?

Perhaps this celebration would be better named Decimosexto de Mayo.

Murky Missions and Mixed Metaphors by Ed Ward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.