I know there are plenty of people out there who roll their eyes at the mention of mission statements, but I’m not one of them. In my own professional life, I’ve found mission statements to be useful in guiding my work. Take the mission statement for Independent School. It’s a straightforward and simple statement (on the masthead to your right) that has been an enormous help to me over the past 15 years. Having such a guiding statement makes it easier for us to decide which articles to accept and which to decline — what matters and what doesn’t. I’m especially fond of the phrase “an open forum.” It means that we don’t dictate the perspectives on the themes we offer. It means that, while we publish some authors frequently, we are always looking for new voices with fresh views. I leave it up to readers to determine our success in meeting our mission, but at least we know what we’re supposed to do each issue.
What I want to acknowledge, however, is not the comfort of a mission statement, but the challenge in tough economic times of either holding on to one’s established mission or changing it. At the moment, the advertising support for Independent School is holding steady, but many magazines struggle mightily these days. In order to save money, the New York Times recently downsized its iconic Sunday magazine, changing the look and feel of a publication that had been rock-steady for decades. Every day in my e-mail inbox, I receive notices of magazines that are closing (today it was Vibe) or some other sign of a struggling publishing industry. Then there are the magazines that are reinventing themselves to stay alive. Time and Newsweek are badly leaking readership and ad revenue. As a result, they have both made significant changes in design and focus — in mission, in identity — hoping for a second life.
When things are going well, it’s fairly easy for us to hold on to our missions as written long ago. But when the wolf is at the door, it’s another matter. We have to choose to either clarify what we do or reinvent ourselves. Serious work either way.
In the independent school world, I’m aware of schools that have reinvented themselves — that have rewritten their missions and reshaped their communities accordingly, based on what they believe they do best or on what they think families desire in a school these days. I’m also aware of schools that have recommitted to their existing mission statements and have reexamined their programs in this light, essentially refocusing everyone’s attention on doing what the schools say they do, believing in the core ideals. I know of others that are still wrestling with their options in a time when revenues and expenses don’t balance out. Having attended a school that closed in the wake of a recession in the mid-1970s (it was an all-boys boarding school in an era when such schools were falling out of favor), I understand the difficulty in the choices that schools must make.
But I also believe in the opportunity contained within this challenge. This process of reexamining our missions and the words we live by, this process of asking the essential questions — Where have we been? Where are we going? — is more likely to strengthen us than hurt us, no matter how we decide to proceed.