Business Solutions

Vision Statements and Mission Statements are often inspiring words chosen by highly successful Entrepreneurs and business leaders to convey the direction of the business organization in a clear and concise manner, and through carefully crafting a clear mission statement and vision statement, you can powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate yourself and your team to realize a well defined and inspiring common vision of the future.

But what about these two terms often used interchangeably, and although there is a vast difference between a mission and vision, and the two concepts play-off of one another, they work in very different ways.

Mission is the purpose or reason for the existence of your business and it is a general heading or direction. A mission is what you stand for, should be timeless and it should rarely, if ever, change and it should always stand the test of time in that there is no end to the mission.

A vision is a specific future destination or a dream with a deadline, and having said that the vision should change over time. The vision must say “yes” to some ideas and “no” to others, since it’s about what the future might be, could be, and shouldn’t be, example: “To put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960’s.”

Mission is about preserving the core of which provides continuity and stability, like a fixed stake in the ground or the horizon limiting possibilities, and acting conservatively, while the vision is about stimulating progress, urging continual change, compelling constant movement, expanding possibilities, and revolutionary change.

To build your mission remember, a mission statement should be somewhat timeless and it should apply not only today but possibly even twenty to fifty years from now, and it should put forth a general direction or heading stating what it is that you stand for. In essence, a mission can never really be achieved as it should be on going, and if it can be achieved if completed, then it is a vision not your mission, and you should think of your mission as your true north heading on your compass. Microsoft’s mission is simple as “Help entrepreneurs realize their full potential”.

To create your mission statement, first identify your business’s “purpose or reason for existence,” and be sure to focus on the idea or approach that make’s your business stand out and apart from its competitors, and is the main reason that customers will choose to do business with you and not your competition.

Next identify the key measures of your success and make sure you choose the most important measures (and not too many of them!), combine your winning idea and success measures into a tangible and measurable goal, then refine the words until you have a concise and precise statement of your mission, which expresses your ideas, measures and desired result.

Once you’ve created your mission statement, move on to create your vision statement and first identify your organization’s mission, then define the human value in that mission, next, identify what you, your customers and stakeholders will value most about how your business will achieve this mission and further define these into the values that your business has or should have. Combine your mission and values, and refine the words until you are satisfied you have a vision statement inspiring enough to energize and motivate people inside and outside your business.

Finally, ask yourself what big goal do you want to try to achieve in the next three to five years, what does success really look like in five years, how should your business be different in five years then it is now, and using your own metrics of success and approach to accomplish, for you to consider yourself successful? Microsoft’s vision is as simple as “a computer in every home that’s running Microsoft software”.