SmartCompany article: Write a Musk-like manifesto to dramatically bring your business’ mission to life

A version of this article appeared in SmartCompany on Tuesday 2 August 2022.

An email from Elon Musk to all Tesla employees sparked global headlines last month. While other businesses were dangling carrots like happy hours to entice their employees back to the office, Musk was firmer.  In his email, he wrote, “The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence”, and “Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in”.

Whether you agree or disagree, in three sentences, Musk set the required behaviour and standards for all employees, leaving no room for translation. He rapidly communicated the behaviours he wanted at Tesla.  

A client of mine not long ago had been struggling to revive the values in their business.

He needed to stop.

It was not a values revival initiative he needed, but he had to start speaking his truth. I suggested he write a manifesto.

For the uninitiated, a manifesto is a written statement declaring its issuers’ intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.  It promotes a new idea with prescriptive notions for carrying out changes the author believes should be made. 

In 1517, Martin Luther was greatly troubled by what was happening in society. He wrote the Ninety-five Theses and nailed them to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg. Thus began the Reformation period. These “Theses” were not an attack on the Church but a reintroduction of what true repentance meant and a call to return to it. 

Luther wasn’t calling for revolution; he was calling for revival.

A manifesto helps your company revive its aspirations. It’s a statement of how your business sees the world. The goal of a manifesto is to put a stake in the ground to create an emotional response. You want emotion because that inspires action. You want people to scream, “Yes! I’m into that!” or conversely, “No, that’s not for me”. 

Many companies go through the tired and traditional process of creating their mission, vision and values. In my experience, these are created, launched, laminated and printed on posters... There they die a prolonged death.

These values don’t live in everyday conversation and behaviours. They don’t cut through and rapidly communicate what it means to live these values. Often, value creation work is over-cooked and not meaningful enough to attract and retain talent. We often see the words Respect, Innovation and Accountability on company intranets. A manifesto is a differentiator that attracts top talent.

Writing a manifesto requires companies to speak their truth and requires boldness (just like good disruptive business strategy!). You want to provoke thinking and bump out of being congenial and conforming to the norm. While values are open to interpretation, a manifesto sets a clear standard of your expectations.

I recently shared one of my change manifesto statements at a Project Management conference, “You can’t manage change”, and someone in the audience vehemently disagreed. This started a wonderful, inspiring exchange of dialogue. That’s what you want to begin with, yours, too.

You can have a manifesto for your business, or even as a functional team charter, or when you kick off a new project. Manifestos aren’t mutually exclusive to corporate values; they can work in tandem beautifully.

Here are some quick tips to start your manifesto:

• Find something that frustrates you in your business. Take notes.

• Use these notes and spin them to declare a positive statement (for example, I thought it was painful that change initiatives lead to more paperwork and process, so I reframed it to “If the change increases bureaucracy, you are doing it wrong).

• Start writing. Don’t look back. You can edit it later.

When’s the right time to craft a manifesto? Anytime. But if you’re seeking a way to revive behaviours and drive a new culture, perhaps now is the right time.

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About the author: Leanne Hughes is an Australian businesswoman, entrepreneur and high-performance business consultant.  She advises clients worldwide on creating dynamic work environments and organisational cultures that improves business performance. She’s a 2022 Inductee in the Million Dollar Consulting® Hall of Fame and hosts the Leanne Hughes' Work and Live Large podcast and the First Time Facilitator podcasts.