Calling “Boul-Shet” on the Tar Heels

After taking the summer off, my pal No Sweat Kosinski is back with some strong words about mission statements and the academic scandal involving football and basketball players at the University of North Carolina. Read on …

Mikey,

I’m pissed as hell about the scandal at the University of North Carolina. The administration worked hard to limit the damage, scapegoating two people in the African and Afro-American Studies department. Now, others are being implicated including football coaches and a faculty member who lied when claiming no knowledge of the scandal, hypocritically calling the accusations “disturbing” and “astonishing.”

Former UNC football coach Butch Davis ROBERT WILLETT — 2010 News & Observer file photo

I predict that there will be hundreds of editorials, blogs and tweets about this scandal in the months to come. Mine will be different because I intend to comment through the lens of the university’s mission statement and make a point about why many mission statements are worthless.

A good resource to understand the value and purpose of a mission statement is Jim Collins and Jerry Porras’ 1996 Harvard Business Review article “Building Your Company’s Vision.” The article says that an effective, memorable and consequential mission statement tells us why an organization exists and where it’s going. It should motivate and make clear what the organization stands for and what it will and will not tolerate. It should also be brief.

I’ve read the University of North Carolina’s mission statement. It’s 177 mind-numbing words long and as hollow as the mission statement of Dunder Mifflin, the mythical company made famous in the TV comedy The Office.

When he saw something that reeked of hypocrisy, my grandfather Czeslaw (Chester) Kosinski would say in his thickly accented English, “That’s boul-shet.” And I’ve decided that North Carolina’s mission statement is indeed “boul-shet.”

Mission statements that are “boul-shet” fall into one of two categories.

• Category 1 includes mission statements that are long-winded, uninspiring and do nothing to differentiate the organization from others. Check out the mission statements of the Democratic and Republican parities. They’re vanilla, interchangeable and like the speeches of most politicians, they’re “boul-shet.”
• Category 2 is the more dangerous category because Category 2 mission statements are filled with false statements and highlight the hypocrisy of the organization. The University of North Carolina’s mission statement falls into Category 2.

In light of what the UNC web site affirms, here are three questions I’d like to ask the president of the university, members of the board of trustees and faculty:

• Your mission statement makes the claim that the university “embraces an unwavering commitment to excellence.” How do you reconcile this claim with nine years of bogus grades given to jocks who didn’t attend class and did no work for their grades?
• When you use the term “student athletes” to refer to members of the football and basketball teams, do you feel like hypocrites?
• What do you say to qualified students whose applications to attend UNC were turned down so that football and basketball players who had no intention of earning a degree could take their seats?

What’s the leadership lesson in all this?

If you’re going to post your mission statement on your web site, make sure it isn’t a Category 2 disaster like the one the dunces at the University of North Carolina created.