Here’s
an experiment you can try: Walk into a company’s office and find its
mission statement hanging on a wall. Take note of its meanings, and
then speak to any five people you meet from that company. Ask them if
they know their company’s mission.

Chances are you’ll hear
either five different responses, or the ever-popular, "I don’t know."
Some people may even laugh at you.

It’s
no small wonder the majority of employees scoff at mission statements.
Usually what we see is fluff - overly vague generalizations that could
apply to almost any company, and often they’re paragraphs long; too
long to be recalled by anyone, and therefore, largely useless.

The problem is made worse when vision and mission statements are intermixed, further clouding their practicality.

At
the core of this all-too-common problem is a simple lack of
understanding. Ask those same five people you talked to earlier to
define "vision" and "mission" and you’re likely to get an equally wide
range of responses.

So, with the intention of making life more
simple and companies more profitable, I offer an easy-to-remember way
to create clearly understood - and useful - vision and mission
statements.

Here are some definitions (and differences), in very simple terms:

Vision Statement: Where you "see" yourself being; where you want to go
Mission Statement: What you do to get there

In a more practical example:

Vision: Widget Manufacturing will be known worldwide as the highest quality widget producer.
Mission: Widget Manufacturing strives to:

• research and integrate the latest, most reliable widget technology,
• use the most reliable widget manufacturing processes, and
• provide unparalleled customer service to every widget customer.

Note
that the vision is not what they do, but where they want to be. The
mission statement outlines what Widget Manufacturing will do. The
differences are clear, and quite simple.

Most of the time a
company keeps its vision statement to itself, since where a company
sees itself being is nobody else’s business. Besides, if the
competition knew where you wanted to be, they could easily create a
strategy that gets in your way. The purpose of a vision statement is to
guide top leadership when making strategic decisions.

A mission
statement clarifies what your company does. You want people to know
what you do - both internally and externally. Internally, it keeps
employees focused and it forms a basis for making tactical decisions.
In other words, if two options for action are on the table, looking at
them in light of the mission statement often helps in choosing a course
of action that moves a company in the direction of its vision.

Externally,
publishing your mission statement tells your clients what they can
expect from you. Just knowing that provides them a sense of stability
and security, and they’ll be more comfortable doing business with you.

Does
a company need a vision and mission statement to function? Obviously
not. The mere fact that so many companies survive without them answers
that question. So what’s the benefit of having them?

Again, the
answer is focus, flow, and a foundation for decisions. In other words,
thriving instead of surviving. Aligning our efforts with an agreed-upon
focus saves both time and frustration, and it makes a company much more
profitable.

For example, much strife exists in companies due to
no shared focus. When a company lacks a vision to which all subscribe,
individual visions and missions tend to rise up and compete with each
other. The result is conflict, delays, and lost revenues, all because
of unnecessary turf wars consuming time and energy.

Creating a clear corporate vision minimizes big pet projects and helps point everyone in the same direction.

Your
mission statement should be posted on a company website, on published
literature, and throughout a company’s brick and mortar structures so
people can see it, be reminded of it, and use it as a guideline for
operations.

Everyone from the top on down should be able to
recite it from memory, and recite it often. If top management eats,
drinks, and breathes the mission statement, everyone else will, too. If
top management ignores it, so will everyone else.

Ideally,
mission statements should not be more than one sentence long. A couple
of bullet points (such as in the example given) are fine, but multiple
paragraphs are not practical for keeping people focused, and are
therefore ineffective. If you find your mission covers a lot of ground,
find a way to boil it down; it can be done if you take the time.

Bottom
line, vision and mission statements create clarity and form a basis for
making both strategic and tactical decisions - all of which help a
company thrive instead of survive.

If thriving profitability is
what you seek and your company vision and mission are unclear or
non-existent, investing time to clarify these statements will help.