From Good Intentions
to Great Missions

Business today faces more than disruption. We are living through the end of one epoch and the uncertain birth of another. Agility tricks and vision statements aren’t enough anymore. What matters is mission: a lived commitment that guides organisations, leaders, and change agents to act with courage and clarity.

At Missions that Matter, we help organisations and leaders craft missions worth believing in — and practise them in ways that make business both admirable and successful.

Leadership as Masterpiece Creation

In our book published this year by MIT Press, Matthew Hancocks, MtM's Principal, and his colleagues Charles Spinosa and Hari Tsoukas show how the humanities can help leaders create profitable, masterpiece organisations

Such organisations possess the emotional and moral sensibilities of the artist, the wisdom of a statesperson, and the technical know-how of commerce.

Make your organisation your masterpiece!

Find the book here.

“Leadership as Masterpiece Creation reveals the creative moral struggle that comes with building up and running a business that almost all books on business ignore or mischaracterize as bravura. It speask to the heart and soul of leadership.”

– Imamu Tomlinson, Chief Executive Officer, Vituity

“A superlative of its kind. This book provides an excellent analysis of the nature and construction of effective leadership.”
– Mike Hobday, Chief Executive, AntWorks Group

Questions That Keep Leaders Awake at Night:

What will it mean to be a “good business” five years from now?

How do we create missions people admire, follow, and believe in?

Are our leaders growing beyond competence into true moral practice?

What contradictions are signalling the breakdown of our sector’s old logic?

How do we act authentically in a time defined by uncertainty and change?

Why Missions that Matter?

We began in the grit of real-world operations, and every tool and idea we use has been forged from decades of hands-on experience. Our approach weaves moral philosophy, developmental coaching, and practical foresight — but always anchored in practice, not theory.

This is practice-led innovation: creating the missions, leaders, and ethical know-how that shape the future of business and make it worth believing in.

Are you ready?

Our mission is helping leaders and organisations discover and live their missions — in ways that are morally admirable, commercially successful, and deeply human.

The next step is a conversation. Let’s explore how Missions that Matter could work with you.

Testimonials

Keeping things simple is the hallmark of Matt’s ability. His approach is to develop a clear and simple strategy to achieve strategic objectives. By using such an approach it helped me and the team to distil opportunities and then develop plans to go for opportunities and make tangible and sustainable savings. The culture change in the team is visible.

When it comes to developing innovative strategies, Matthew is the person I turn to first. He combines wide research with careful analysis of both market conditions and of the competencies and cares of leaders. His cutting-edge work delivers ethical and cultural innovations where people inside companies and their customers see themselves on a righteous mission. That zeal makes the strategies Matthew develops unstoppable.

I have worked with Matt for more than fifteen years and have always found his consulting challenging, insightful, and action oriented. He has supported me in implementing the strategy through a promise-based performance management and governance framework and the development of our Top 100 leaders.

Matt’s calm, supportive style enabled me and my team to shift to a new way of working while still delivering on commitments. His coaching made a significant difference at a stressful time.”

I cannot think of anyone more qualified as an executive coach than Matt. He combines commercial insight with moral imagination and practical wisdom. He knows how far to push people and when to step back, and always keeps the big picture in view while guiding the detail. Working with him is both challenging and energising — and always grounded in a deep sense of care.

I had the pleasure of working with Matthew as a coach for six months, beginning in September 2023. When I started, I was feeling lost and downtrodden. I was unsure how to evolve my own practices, had become closed off, and lacked direction. Through our work together, Matthew helped me identify personal strengths, develop my leadership style, and restore my belief in myself. After six months I felt like a new person — I landed multiple job offers, negotiated with confidence, and stepped into a role I was genuinely excited about. His coaching was patient, insightful, and deeply human.

Matt was crucial in helping me have confidence in my own approach as a leader of large energy engineering projects. He helped me take seriously the thrill of what we were building — connecting wind farms to the Grid, switching on a £1Bn HVDC cable — and bring that excitement into the whole team. With his support I developed a leadership style that was true to me, and that inspired my team to deliver £4Bn of projects ahead of schedule and under budget. At moments of doubt, our conversations gave me confidence and the courage to adapt to changing contexts.

From Good Intentions to Great Missions