Isn’t Vision just another name for a Mission Statement?
Maybe on one level it is. Maybe to some people they amount to the same thing. But I don’t like mission statements. All too often they’re created when the consultants are on the payroll and end up being a fairly meaningless statement that is forgotten about the next day but….
….heh, we’ve got our mission statement and it only cost $10000!
Mission statements are nearly always either bland or brash with no picture that anyone can understand or interpret and yet a framework for action is meant to be derived from it. Mission statements are flavour of the month, a ‘me-too’ actvity to show how forward-thinking management are. Unfortunately no one can ever remember them, no one knows what to do with them and in the end nobody cares about them, not even the consultant!
What does world-class customer service involve? Who defines good customer service?
What does the leader in financial services mean? Leader by whose yardstick?
Doesn’t our mission statement sound too much like the next guy’s? And what will next year’s mission statement be?
In the end the statement ends up in the ‘miscellaneous file’ to be forgotten about forever more. All too often mission statements yield zero action.
What makes a difference is vision (followed by strategy, decisions and actions).
Vision gives something for people to hang their coats on. The big brush strokes that set the scene and start to bring the game alive.
And yet is vision essential to every business? The answer depends on the ambition of the business by which I mean its owners and key people.
