Saturday, May 23, 2009

My Haiku Mission Statement

Simplicity has been one of the important characteristics in my life in the last few years, both professionally and personally. It is actually liberating seeking the path of simplicity. It is also a huge undertaking to shift towards simplicity so I take daily steps.

When I read Kevin Meyer’s post Twitter, Haiku and the Simplicity of Mission last month, it hit home. I love the simplicity of Haiku poems. Haiku uses only 17 syllables arranged in lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables to describe simple ideas or events, usually connected to nature. It is also a great format to focus your thoughts concisely. Using this format, I tried to develop a Haiku to reflect my personal business mission statement. Here goes:

My Business Mission Statement
Develop leaders.
Live the lean philosophy.
Teach it to others.
Simple words but extremely challenging, especially "live the lean philosophy". Just as I try to embrace simplicity, I will take on this personal business mission in daily steps.

2 comments:

Mike T. said...

Love it, Mike. Been trying to come up with something similar myself after the Haiku discussion. I've even been challenging our Divisional manufacturing leader to come up with one, just for fun.

GenSi7 said...

I think we should all post that on every wall/chart/surface we walk past every day...that's one of the best haiku's and indeed, lean statements I've read. Nice job Mike!