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MISSION

Reflections on an extraordinary Company

Summarizing the spirit of a company such as Bose is an impossible task.

However, in 1987 I was in effect consulting (working half-time and photographing the other half) on various projects and felt it was time to write down that which was most importat about values, purpose and objectives. So I gave it a try, showed it to Dr. Bose and some of the managers and was invited to speak about it to various groups.

When I finihed it seemed a summary was in order, so with Dr. Bose’s approval I had one printed and found it posted in their offices by many employess.

The current Time Magazine is about work and one article on the future of work has an important paragraph about mission.

“Bosses can also offer a sense of mission. “The single biggest thing you can do is make the work feel meaningful,” says Laszlo Bock, the chief executive of Humu and former senior vice president of people operations at Google. Bock recommends that managers share stories about the impact of their teams’ work. Research shows that the most successful organizations have a clear purpose at their core.”

Of all the parts of the Bose mission as I saw it in 1987 is:

To bring the experience of superb music superbly reproduced to every potential customer.”

In other words do great demos and so Bob Petrucci and I spent about one million dollars on audio-visual equipment so that Bob’s extraordinary a/v shows could be presented around the world. The managers of sales to the US military created a large truck with pop-out sides and did a land-office businesses at PXs throughout Europe. In my opinion, these presentations did more to move forward Bose’s image and sales than any other endeavor.

Below is the “mission statement” as I wrote it in 1987. At the end is a reproduction of the version we had printed for distribution throughout the company.

Clicking on any page will enlarge it to full screen.