Mission and Vision

About a year ago I purchased a smart phone that runs off of Google’s Android operating system and it changed my entire perception on the future of information. The capabilities they put in the palm of your hand seem almost limitless. Any bit of information you need can be retrieved at a moment’s notice. After seeing how Google has incorporated the different areas of its information business into a mobile, I thought I would see how all this related back to their mission and vision statements. As it turns out, Google’s mission and vision statement is a well phrased sentence that encompasses everything they do.
“To organize the world 's information and make it universally accessible and useful,” (Google, 2010).
Google has a clear and straight forward mission statement, and this company has proven that it has no intention of not accomplishing what they stand for. According to the book Management; Challenges for Tomorrow’s Leaders, the organization’s mission, “reflects its fundamental reasons for existence,” and Google has delivered, and continues to deliver information that is accessible and useful (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007).
A vision statement as defined by the book is, “intended to guide the organization into the future” (Lewis, Goodman, Fandt, & Michlitsch, 2007). Whereas Google tends to talk about its mission and vision as though they are the same thing, I found another paragraph on Google’s corporate webpage that spells out where they see themselves going in the future:
“Search is how Google began, and it 's at the heart of what we do today. We devote more engineering time to search than to any other product at Google, because we believe that search can always be improved. We are constantly working to provide you with more relevant results so that you find what you 're looking for faster” (Google, 2010).
It is important for a company to designate what it is they do just as Google has done, but they should also set forth an idea as to how they’ll continue getting there in the future. Google has clearly stated that it wishes to continue on its core search function as it enhances the very heart of their mission. In essence, this is what Google is about. It’s what they’ve been about, and it’s what they are going to continue to be about for the predictable future. A website called "Vision and Strategic Plans: Who needs them?” lays out some specific standards that should be used to guide whether an organization should have a vision statement. They state that an organization should have a vision if one or more of the following is true (Hiatt, 1999): * You have embarked on an initiative to produce breakthrough results for your organization, and you are on the team or the leader of the initiative. * Your organization is performing poorly in critical areas for business success (operating costs, customer satisfaction, quality of goods or services, etc.), and you have been ask to help work this issue. * You need to prioritize a limited amount of investment dollars between a variety of improvement initiatives (the organization can 't do everything). * You have been asked to set short and long-term goals for your organization in key performance areas.
Whereas it seems almost obvious that if caught in any of these situations the company would surly want to develop a vision, if the organization had a vision in place to begin with some of the problem would be avoided.
Personally, I believe that it is the duty of the organization to strive for breakthrough results and the vision should be laid out to help achieve those results. If an organization has enough forethought to set the ground works of their operations by developing a sound mission and vision statement, then they will surely avoid falling off their intended paths or becoming overwhelmed by trying to do too much. We don’t go into business to do poorly and a well thought out mission and vision helps us to stay on track. We are here to do what it is we do best at the highest possible level we are able to do it and the mission and vision are there to funnel out any possible distraction to the end result; success.
Works Cited

Google. (2010). www.google.com/corporate. Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Google: http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html
Hiatt, J. (1999). Vision and Strategic Plans: Who needs them? Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Prosci: BPR Learning Center: http://www.prosci.com/vis1.htm
Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow 's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western.
Vaughan-Nichols, S. J. (12/21/2009). All Google, All the Time, Everywhere. Computerworld , Pg. 27.

Cited: Google. (2010). www.google.com/corporate. Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Google: http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html Hiatt, J. (1999). Vision and Strategic Plans: Who needs them? Retrieved 01 24, 2010, from Prosci: BPR Learning Center: http://www.prosci.com/vis1.htm Lewis, P. S., Goodman, S. H., Fandt, P. M., & Michlitsch, J. F. (2007). Management: Challenges for Tomorrow 's Leaders. Mason: Thomson South-Western. Vaughan-Nichols, S. J. (12/21/2009). All Google, All the Time, Everywhere. Computerworld , Pg. 27.