Brion 1. Lewis is a management consultont who specializes in working with engineering firms assist design-firm principals 10 plan and achieve Ihe highesl polen/ial for Iheir firms-Io nol only look ahead but 10 see around corners. He lives in Wilmington, N.C. With one of the major success stories of the marketplace in the last 50 years, McDonald's Corp., Oak Brook, m., has a very simple, succinct vision statement: [Our] goal is 100 percent total customer satisfaction ... every day ... in every restaurant ... for every customer. That vision came directly from Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's. It pervades the company's operations, and it has contributed to high customer satisfaction, resounding commercial success and worldwide growth. What's more, it has spawned a legion of former employees, imbued with this principle of customer satisfaction, who have gone on to become successful executives in major U.S. corporations. Leading experts agree that with a clear set of values, enunciated from the top and embraced publicly by the leadership, fare far better than those that subscribe to wishywashy generalities or have no clear stated sense of where they are going. The aphorism is true: Firms that don't know where they're going usually end up there. Management guru Peter Drucker opines that mission statements are vital for business success. He stresses that firms should not base their strategies on their financial rates of return but on their missions. Drucker believes missions create disciplined organizations. These alone can prevent organizations from squandering their always limited resources on things that are interesting or look 'profitable' rather than concentrating them on a very small number of productive efforts. Annette Dunlap, a small-business consultant, observes that companies that have a good understanding of why they exist also have the freedom to respond quickly to new opportunities in their operating environments (Dunlap's emphasis). She notes that while a mission statement is crucial to the long-term continuous success of a firm, it is no substitute for strong leadership. Attitudes are set from the top, and the way in which they are communicated throughout the organization can either enhance the meaningfulness of a company's vision or make a mockery of it. Top management must accept and execute its responsibility to see that all the firm's employees understand and appreciate the company's direction.