Every action is called a mission these days…and that’s what’s missing.

Honestly, miss-shun has become the most overused of all misunderstood jargon! In the marketing fields you hear people say “What’s your mission?” like “How’s your soup?” without caring what the answer is. Yet knowing the reason a group is committing to their day-to-day is as important—if not more so—than the messages you dole out. When a core value, statement or motto of a place where people toil all day long—what could be written on the a plaque in neon or graffiti—is clear as possible, it makes the hard work tons easier. Imagine—everyone gets why the little things matter…what it adds up to. New math!

Not sharing The Mission is simply selfish and a crappy business strategy. It deftly explains why so many overblown ideas tanked as corporate entities in the mission-less 90s: Some folks (Venture Capitalists no doubt) knew what the goals of the firm were. But they didn’t share it with anyone—except the accountants.

Importance of mission is made doubly obvious when we consider that in the milieu of citizen journalism, every employee is a potential spokesperson. The key to everyone wanting to build the same strong, unerring ladder is being on a non-clichéd playing field with full open book knowledge of what’s happening internally, where the daily responsibilities of one’s job are now “leading the Company into battle.”

Some years ago, the chairman of Bloomingdales stood as part of a customer acquisition panel and said, without blinking, “The most important people are those that go up in the elevator at 9 and leave around 6.”

It was his fancy-shmancy way of telling attendees that his staff better be happy before any customer was going to spend cash at his beloved business place. Too often, the “mission” of a company is to succeed at any cost, because of an altogether capricious economy.

Yet when we think of successes, our mind wanders to the few, the proud, where people within the organization get why they’re there, what the mantra is (invisibly) written on a bathroom wall, or what the goal is for everyone, all day long, all together now.

Think Apple.

Richard Laermer is RLM’s Chief Strategist, Mission Evangelist, and co-author of the rabble-rousing Punk Marketing. His blog is BadPitch.