After reading the article in Fast Company "Dead Man Walking," I was inspired to emphasize the importance of Mission, Vision, and Core Value statements. If you're asking, "Why in heck would I need that corporate meaningless jargon for my real-life business?" I'm going to try to answer that question.
Firstly, we should answer, "What are Vision, Mission, and Core Value Statements?" To answer that, I'll have to borrow some info from the experts...
Mission Statement
The mission statement should be a clear and succinct representation of the enterprise's purpose for existence. It should incorporate socially meaningful and measurable criteria addressing concepts such as the moral/ethical position of the enterprise, public image, the target market, products/services, the geographic domain and expectations of growth and profitability.-Business Resource Software, Inc.
Ford Motor Company (early 1900's)
"Ford will democratize the automobile"
Sony (early 1950's)
"Become the company most known for changing the worldwide poor-quality image of Japanese products"
Boeing (1950)
"Become the dominant player in commercial aircraft and bring the world into the jet age"
Wal-Mart (1990)
"Become a $125 billion company by the year 2000"
Vision Statement
A Vision Statement is a written declaration of the Strategic Vision of a firm. It contains the desired future state at which a company hopes to arrive and is articulating the dreams and hopes for the business. It reminds the people in your firm of what you are trying to build.-12manage
Ideally, a vision statement has the following characteristics:
- Focus on the future
- Inspirational, hopeful
- Provides clear decision-making criteria
- Long-term oriented and timeless
- Clear, not ambiguous
- Memorable, easy to remember
- Realistic, achievable
Now let's skip all the research that says successful companies have clear, concise mission and vision statements, and move to practicality for our every day entreprenuerial lives.
Without Vision and Mission, we get distracted from our true purpose by the daily grind. If you read the Fast Company article, you'll understand how difficult it is to drive forward, to progress, to grow without a clear understanding of the direction you're headed.
Make your vision broad enough for growth, differentiated enough to peak interest, and simple to stick in the brain. You want your vision and mission to be pervasive enough that you and/or your employees can spit it out on the phone with customers or out at the bar with friends. You want your product sourcing decision makers to ask themselves how their next mix progresses your company further toward delivering that vision and mission.
Just remember, before sitting down to hammer out that new strategy, new product line, new site design, remeber to think about where the company has been and where it should be going. Make sure you're answering "How can we continue to enhance this message simply and understandably?" Keeping this in mind will keep you from that same fragmented fate of Time Warner's $99 billion dollar write-off: AOL.
Oh, and get subscription to Fast Company!
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