“Management by objectives works if you know the objectives…90% of the time you don’t

Leadership

Peter Drucker
Unleashing the power of purpose
Vision Statements and Mission Statements are the inspiring words chosen by successful leaders to clearly and convey the direction of the business or organization. By crafting a clear mission statement and then vision statement. The objective is then to powerfully communicate your intentions and motivate your team or organization to realize an attractive and inspiring common vision of the future.
“Mission Statements” and “Vision Statements” do two distinctly different jobs.
Mission Statement defines the organization’s purpose and primary objectives. Its prime function is internal – to define the key measure or measures of the organization’s success. This is mostly a management tool to help define internal systems and Structures. The mission statement helps to define the short term tactics used to achieve the long term Vision.
Vision Statements also define the organizations purpose, but this time they do so in terms of the organization’s values rather than bottom line measures (values are guiding beliefs about how things should be done.) The vision statement communicates both the purpose and values of the organization.
For employees, it gives direction about how they are expected to behave and inspires them to give their best. Shared with customers, it shapes customers’ understanding of why they should work with the organization.
The Vision is truly beginning with the end in mind
The Vision is a distinct picture of what your long term business looks like. The advantage with the vision is the power of influence, the ability to pill people into your vision. Communicating your vision in a way that attracts people to your cause like a magnet, basically through your sense of purpose, belief, passion and enthusiasm you are easily able to convince people to buy into your business, the excitement pulls them to you. It is necessary to creating Raving Fans and instead of selling you are now creating a solution for your customers the products sell themselves.

The Contrast of a company that lacks vision is the following, management and employees lack purpose, and enthusiasm and often times let the urgent supersede the important, work with low intention, and focus on tactical execution with absolutely no focus on the future goals.
This is not necessarily the issue (to focus on tactical execution is not wrong however to focus on busyness verses business becomes a losing proposition.) You are in the drivers seat to Cultivate a Purpose, paint a clear vision, make clear the reason for your organizations existence and the unique product or service you offer.
First we look at creating mission statements. Then we create vision statements.
Mission Statement Creation

1. To create your mission statement, first identify your organization’s “winning idea”.

(This is the idea or approach that will make your organization stand out from its competitors, and is the reason that customers will come to you and not your competitors Review your USP)

2. Next identify the key measures of your success. Make sure you choose the most important measures (and not too many of them!)

3. Combine your winning idea and success measures into a tangible and measurable goal. (Creates systems and Accountabilities)

4. Refine the words until you have a concise and precise statement of your mission, which expresses your ideas, measures and desired result.
Example:

Take the example of a produce store whose winning idea is “farm freshness”. The owner identifies two keys measures of her success: freshness and customer satisfaction. She creates her mission statement – which is the action goal that combines the winning idea and measures of success.
The mission statement of Farm Fresh Produce is:
“To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction.”
Verses a Large Corporate Mission Sysco
Syscos’s Mission – Helping Our Customers Succeed
It’s the foundation of the decisions and actions taken by our employees on a daily basis.
Attention to detail, going the extra mile and simply being available for any need enhances the level of service each customer receives, and ultimately benefits customers in their daily endeavors to satisfy patrons.
We are committed to our customer’s success and to helping them achieve their goals. Maintaining outstanding service has become even more important as consumers embrace quality dining experiences as they enjoy meals away from home. Our responsibility is not taken lightly our customer’s success is vital to our success.

“The Best way to predict the future is to create it”
Peter Drucker

Vision Statement Creation

Once you’ve created your mission statement, the next step would then be to create your vision statement: A vision statement should paint a picture of what you want your business or division to look like in the future. This may of may not be something that you are necessarily going to share with your customers this is about what you want for your future.
Your vision statement should excite you and help you dream. If your vision statement doesn’t excite you how can you expect to be successful, how can go to work each day and be motivated? How can you overcome the obstacles and frustration brought on by starting a business?
A vision statement should be specific to a company, team or division and therefore there could be numerous vision statements in one company. This will help us to understand that we can have multiple visions for each aspect of our business.

1. First identify your organization’s mission. Then uncover the real, human value in that mission this again translates from your USP and what are you solving for your market.
2. Next, identify what you and your customers will value most about accomplishing your mission. What is the true goal of Sysco’s mission? (Our responsibility is not taken lightly our customer’s success is vital to our success).
3. Combine your mission with your long term strategy until you create a vision statement inspiring enough to excite you to wake up everyday this will translate to your customers.
4. Using the example mission statement developed for Farm Fresh Produce, the owner examines what she, her customers and her employees value about her mission.

The examples below are to contrast the differences in business size and style the vision statement for Farm Fresh Produce and Sysco below.
The four most important things that Farm Fresh Produce identifies are: freshness, healthiness, tastiness and “local-ness” of the produce. Here’s the Vision Statement they create and shares with employees, customers and farmers alike:
“We help the families of Main Town live happier and healthier lives by providing the freshest, tastiest and most nutritious local produce: From local farms to your table in under 24 hours.”
For Sysco it is really succinct yet creates a vast picture of business growth and expansionism. One must first understand some general business terms to really understand the size and scope of Sysco’s vision tied off right inline with the mission

Sysco’s Vision is to be the global leader of the efficient multi-temperature food product value chain. We purchase from a multitude of growers, Manufacturers and Processors, and market and distribute more than 360,000 food and related products and Services to more than 400,000 customers- all with a single mission of helping our customers succeed.

Now create your own vision statement To create a vision statement it could help to fill in the blanks of the sentence below:

Within the next ___ years grow ______________________ (company/department name) into a ______________________ (type of company) providing ______________________ (description of products/services) to ______________________ (description of target customer/clients) with annual sales of $ ________.

Review

The first step in creating a mission is to have a USP.
A vision statement helps to create the first step towards achieving the results you truly desire.
Organizations without clarity of vision often are focus purely on financial goals, resulting in the neglect to the long term objectives
Strategies become less about long term innovation and intent and more on reactive tasks (putting out fires).

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