What is your Prime Directive?

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In the Star Trek television series, the captains and their crew were bound by a prime directive:

Do nothing to interfere with the natural course of a new civilization

Prime directive is an important safeguard and a guiding principle to support a mission. Prime directive must be simple (yet profound) to understand. It must empower you to take critical decisions swiftly.  It must encapsulate, in a short pithy sentence, the wisdom to make choices and focus on driving the mission.

Southwest Airlines' prime directive is it is a "low fare airline". This empowers their employees to forgo serving a chicken salad in favor of continuing to offer low fare (without compromising on existing quality)

If your mission is to create great software your prime directive could be reliability and robustness of the software.

If your mission is to become a great leader, your prime directive could be conducting yourself with integrity

If your mission is to generate more traffic to your website, your prime directive could be asking yourself - what value do you bring to your site visitors?

If your mission is to become a valuable employee, your prime directive could be how indispensable are you to your company?

If your mission is to have lasting, meaningful relationships with your customers, your prime directive could be proactively defining their needs and delivering high quality customer service.

If your mission is to become the best parent, your prime directive could be becoming your child's best friend.

So define your prime directive today and every time you pursue your mission, ask yourself if it aligns/distorts your prime directive.

So what is your prime directive?