Vision and Mission Statements – The Beginning of Team Alignment

Last week I shared the basic principles of a Strategy Alignment Process that I use to guide leadership teams to create a 1-page strategy which gets converted into an action plan. This plan captures not only the purpose, vision, values and aspiration of the company but also the strategic Must Win Battles and how to achieve this.

To kick off the conversation about the future I always start by helping the team look back and identify the successes and failures of the company on an ‘organisational time line’. It’s all about knowing “The Right Questions to Ask to Fully Align You Leadership Team.” After all, without a past you can not create a future. The purpose of doing this is twofold:

• Firstly it energizes people and brings participants into a positive mindset resulting in an outcome along the lines of of “Wow! Look what we’ve achieved over all these years!”.
• Secondly it provides insights into patterns and trends on how the company has behaved and performed in the past and lets people learn from their previous failures while building on success factors.

Having learned from their past the team is then ready to explore the future. The discussion over the future should always start by answering the question Why Do We Exist? For me this consists of five elements:

1. Purpose: A declaration of an end result that is meaningful, inspires and is important to the organisation and all its stakeholders.
2. Mission: What the organisation does to achieve its purpose.
3. Vision: A picture of a future when your purpose is being fulfilled.
4. Aspirational Goal: The goal you want employees to focus on.
5. Values: How you behave and need to behave to achieve this purpose.

   

The Vision – Why Do You Exist? 

The vision should paint a picture of the future – when the company has achieved its purpose.

James Collins and Jerry Porras in their legendary HBR article Building Your Company Vision provide a simple yet powerful method on how companies should identify their organisation’s purpose: The 5 Why Questions. The same can be used to extract the prupose of an organization by asking the leadership team the 5 Why’s.

Start with “Why are they doing what they are doing?” and “Why do customers buy from them?”. When they are able to answer these, ask them again “Why is this the case?”. By asking why over and over again you will go deeper and deeper into the real reason/purpose of a company’s existence.

I recently applied this technique to an integrated service provider of inspection, testing and certification services. Their answer to the question ‘Why do you exist?’ was initially that companies were legally required to get their equipment tested. After a couple of rounds of why and introspection the answer slowly and steadily became about helping companies improve their efficiency, ensuring their continuity and safety. The team finally concluded that their reason for existence was:

“Enabling Safer and More Reliable Operations”

The Mission – What Do You Do

The mission is a clear and simple articulation of what the company does to achieve it’s purpose and equally as important what it doesn’t do.

In order to make sure what you do fits with what your key customers ‘want you to do’ I apply a methodology developed by Robert H Bloom. In his book the ‘Inside Advantage’ he explains that a relentless focus on knowing your core customer, identifying what differentiate you from your competitors and defining a strategy that delivers this to your customers at every interaction with the company is the key to growing your business. He calls it ‘Growth Discovery Process’.

In following this approach you first step is to identify your core customer. Bloom identifies the core customer as ‘the customers who are most likely to buy your product in the quantity required for optimal profit’. Having identified your core customer you then have to ask yourself ‘What is the uncommon offering that your company can own and leverage to retain your current core customers and attract new customers?’.

Following this process a long standing client of my developed the following mission:

“An independent, knowledgeable and Professional [blank] Solutions Manufacturer that is committed to providing the widest range of Customized [blank] with a Personal Touch”.

The vision and mission of a company go hand in hand. They’re not about the most beautiful sentences, that’s for copy-writers. What is important is that each and every member of the leadership team can feel, breath and live these two statements. Next week I”ll look deeper into the next part of this series, the Aspirational Goal and Values. To be continued…..!