Goals and Vision Statements
By Mark Fenner
The essential foundation
Mission, Vision, Values
it takes a strong foundation, clear objectives, and the appropriate culture for a leader to inspire people to do their best work. Building that foundation starts by determining the company’s mission, vision, and values.
Taking the time to chart the mission, vision, and values provides a line of sight that helps everyone in the organization know where they are heading. As the behaviors to accomplish the mission reflect the values, it empowers the organization and everyone in it to reach their potential. These are all critical elements in fostering a culture of success.
The mission, vision, and values declaration needs to be simultane- ously succinct and inspirational. If it’s lengthy or if it fails to connect with people, no one will ever remember it. It must also be at the core of how leaders in the organization motivate their people. They have to reinforce it in all that they say and do. They have to own it, both intellectually and in their hearts.
Effective leaders build on the mission, vision, and values to inspire and to create clarity. For high- performing organizations these are far more than words on a website or on motivational posters. They make it crystal clear where the organization is heading, why it matters, and how the team must behave.
Take BridgeHealth as an example. The CEO of this Denver- based medical services benefit management company had formed a new leadership team and recognized the need for a common, well- developed framework to spell out what the company stands for and how it operates.
The team worked closely to articulate the mission, vision, and values, then boil all that down to an easily understood single-page document.
Not every company has such a blank-slate opportunity with a new executive team, but distilling the mission, vision, and values can be done – or refreshed – anytime. It may be on a regular basis or when there have been major changes to the company or its people.
But how does a company that may never have clearly defined its mission, vision, and values go about characterizing itself in this way? Here are the key steps: define the Mission
Your mission statement should boldly answer the question of what you do and why you do it. The “why” part of the mission statement provides purpose. It should motivate and inspire. For example, Steve Jobs in founding Apple defined the company’s mission in this way: “Change the World.”
It doesn’t get much bolder than that, and it would be easy to discount that kind of brashness, except that Jobs believed this so intensely that he made it possible. That was clear in the way that he spoke and brought this mission to life. The words in a mission state- ment are worthless if the leader doesn’t truly believe it or center the organization around it.
The best mission statement will be no more than four sentences. Think of your employees and how this will connect with them as you create it, and then share it with at least the direct reports of the leadership team, to gain their input and make sure they agree that it will resonate with everyone. Cast the Vision
The vision statement spells out where your company is going and
what it is striving to become. A compelling vision taps emotions. It should connect with the hopes and dreams of all stakeholders. If done properly it creates an identity that inspires all team members to raise their standards.
In their book Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras found that organizations that have endured for decades share a common practice: They all set massive 10-to 25-year goals. Collins and Porras refer to these as BHAGs – Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals – and define them as incorporating “a long-term vision so daring in its scope as to seem impossible.”
Powerful visions move people to action, while weak visions have no power. It takes courage to cast a bold vision. That is why so few leaders are able to do it. Insecure leaders do not cast bold visions. define the Values
Values are the foundational building blocks of your culture. As former Merck CEO Richard Clark puts it, “You can have a good strategy in place, but if you don’t have the culture and the enabling systems that allow you to successfully implement that strategy, the culture of the organization will defeat the strategy.”
Culture, at its most basic, is how people behave when no one is watching. It’s the heartbeat of your organization, the lifeblood of your teams. Company values drive organizational behaviors, and those ag- gregate behaviors establish culture. Anyone who has flown Southwest Airlines knows it has a unique culture in the airline industry. The company’s values drive a culture of fun, creating an experience that stands out from its many competitors.
Once your company crafts its mission-vision-values statement, the next step is a full-scale internal public relations and marketing campaign. Start with an all-hands kickoff meeting, complete with posters, handout materials, and anything else you think will help people internalize the information.
From then on, all significant meetings should be purposely structured so as to nurture the seeds you have planted. The mission, vision, and values should be communicated as much, and as creatively, as pos- sible. They should be reflected in every performance review and every discussion of team and individual activities. It is all but impossible to over-communicate it.
Organizations can update their mission and vision statements every five to seven years, depending on circumstances. The values should never change.
It all comes down to this: Effective leaders determine the behaviors necessary to create the desired culture and drive performance. Decide on the culture you want, define the behaviors that will create that culture, and start living these behaviors. Create systems to reinforce your values and use these systems, along with memorable stories, to instill them into your culture. LE
Mark Fenner is President and Founder of Rise Performance Group, which inspires people by applying cutting edge leadership practices to timeless leader- ship principles. Connect Mark Fenner Follow @MarkatRisePG
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