Mission and Vision Statements
Do you know what your organization’s mission is?
When everything else is stripped away, what is its core purpose? And why are team members motivated to come to work every day?
Most companies have a driving purpose. But, sometimes, this isn’t well defined, and often team members don’t know what it is. This is why taking time to create a mission and vision statement for your organization is so worthwhile.
Not only will this define your business’s true purpose, but it will also give your team a focus.
When people have a purpose they understand, and are passionate about, their work becomes more exciting and meaningful – just reflect on how much happier you are when you’re working towards something that you know helps other people.
And, when team members work for an organization with values they believe in, a business can be transformed.
First though, let’s look at what mission and vision statements are.
A mission statement defines your organization’s purpose and primary objectives. It also sets out its goals, and how you’re going to measure them. For instance, imagine you work for a major airline with this mission statement: “To be the most reliable airline in the industry for on-time arrivals, and to have the lowest number of customer complaints.”
So, to write out your own mission statement, first identify your organization’s winning idea. Why was it founded? What distinguishes it in the marketplace? What do its leaders want to achieve?
Then, think about how you truly want to measure success. Remember, this doesn’t have to be about the bottom line alone. In our example, success is measured by being number one in on-time arrivals, and by having the lowest number of customer complaints.
Keep working at this until you can combine your organization’s purpose and success measures into one powerful, concise statement. Once you’ve finalized this, you can move on to your vision statement.
Now, look at your mission statement again. What’s the underlying, human value of what you have written?
Remember the mission statement we created for the airline? The organization wants to reduce stress for its customers, and help them enjoy travel. So, its vision statement might say, “We help travelers have a stress free and enjoyable flight: we get people to their destination happy and on time.”
Do you see how the vision statement is more emotional? It sounds like a partnership between the airline and its customers. This is an idea that the airline team members can really get excited about. Your own vision statement should be similar – emotional and compelling. And when you read it, you should feel enthusiastic about what you’re doing.
Developing mission and vision statements can motivate your team or organization to realize an inspiring vision of the future.
