Vision Mission

Companies summarize their goals and objectives in Mission and Vision statements. Both these things serve different purposes for the company but are often confused with each other. While a mission statement describes what the company wants now, the vision statement describes what the company wants to be in the future.
Let’s talk about vision statement.
What is Vision Statement?

A vision statement talks about what the company wants to be. It describes what the "vision" of the company is for its future. It lists where the company sees itself some years from now.

Characteristics of a Good Vision Statement

Future casting: It is looking forward; describing a bright future which inspires you to give your best. It shapes your understanding of why are you working here.

Clear and Visible: It should be clear and visible and should be baed on facts.

Audacious or Daring: It is related to showing a willingness to take risk in determining where to go in the future.

Descriptive: It needs to be descriptive. It must be a single sentence or phrase that is simple, short, clear and easy to understand.

Time-bounded or Time frame: It has to be clearly shown the exact period, and this can be 5 or 10 years future planning.

Achievable: Realistic aspirations. Should not be unattainable.

Types of Vision Statements

1. A good vision can be written with quantitative or generative nature. This can be written with the amount of expected money. For example, to get profit of 10 million dollar in the year of 2015.
2. A good vision statement can be written with competitive nature. A good vision statement can be written in a competitive form. For example, to be the heart of everybody in the world in the year of 2017.
3. A good vision statement can be written with the superlative form. For example, to be the best of car manufacturing in Asia in the year of 2018.
Example

National Breast Cancer Coalition has a vision statement - “Breast Cancer Deadline 2020” which is pretty clear, achievable and also within a standard time frame.

How to put up a Vision Statement?

People: Staff cannot be ignored while putting up a vision statement. It’s not about the end product, but how you get people engaged towards achieving that product.

Process: Get people together, work in small groups of 3 or 4 not more than 5. If it’s too big it may not work. Have each person write the headline of a newspaper story about the organization 20 years in the future that tells about the success the organization has had. Share stories, and develop a list of common vision themes. Use this as a basis for writing a vision statement. Perspective: Long-term perspective. Encourage your staff to think big, think long-term. They should be able to see 5 year time horizon.

Completing your Vision Statement

A vision statement can be drafted in a group, but it’s probably best to leave the final words to a single person, or small volunteer group, so as not to bog down the process. Of course, the final version needs to be reviewed and approved by everyone (usually at the next meeting).

Now let’s head to the Mission Statement.

What is Mission Statement?
A Mission statement talks about what the company is now. It concentrates on present; it defines the customer(s), critical processes and it informs you about the desired level of performance.
Characteristics of a Good Mission Statement
A good mission statement must be short & clear. This means a good mission statement must not be complicated or written in a long sentence which often leads to confusion/misinterpretation.

A good mission statement must be memorable. Memorable means to be easy to understand and put into practice.

A good mission statement must be inspiring. Inspiring means to fill someone with interest and enthusiasm. A good mission statement should be written with the forms of advertising styles, and they have to be attractive to the readers.

A good mission statement must be market-focused. This means it has to be relevant to who will be the customers, what services will be, or what values will be provided to the customers.

A good mission statement must answer the question “What you want to be remembered for?”
Example

McDonalds - "To provide the fast food customer food prepared in the same high-quality manner world-wide that is tasty, reasonably-priced & delivered consistently in a low-key décor and friendly atmosphere."
Google- "To organize the world’s information & make it universally accessible and useful."

How to create a good Mission Statement?

People: A good mission statement is required to share the ideas from all the people in the organization (which includes staff and management team).

Information: A good mission statement is required to input all the information and then synthesize or analyse.

Process: A good mission statement is required to make into processes (BDA: before, during, & after).How? Collect the ideas from the people, write it down on some sticky notes. Move around till you think the keywords are in the right order and it sounds good. Draft a couple of different ways to articulate the mission statement discuss again with the same group and finalise the one which you think best fits your organisation.