The Mission, Vision, Values ExerciseBy Chris Gostling – Momentum Visual Inc - 2016

Some people say the most memorable ways to deepen your understanding, and challenge your commitment to a relationship, is to move in together or to go camping.

For some people this ends in a disconnected disaster, and for others it can leave them better for the experience.

Asking Harder QuestionsIn a world of business, the comparable “character building” experiences are completing an RFP for a government contract, or going through the process of defining your organization’s Mission Statement, Vision Statement and Value Set.

Both are exercises that force you and your leadership team to ask the harder questions about your organization.

I don't recommend anyone actually participating in an RFP

process unless it's absolutely necessary. I do however strongly recommend anyone running an organization to go through the exercise of defining Mission & Vision Statements and a Value Set (M/V/V) before making any new significant business plans.

One of the key insights that is gained from defining your M/V/V is a clear WHY to support "Why are we running this business?"

Why Does Your Organization Operate?

But you haven't done the exercise yet, and here are a few good(ish) reasons why not:

• You're too busy kicking ass and taking names

• You don't really believe in what you doing

• You wouldn't want to share this information with your audience

• You don't know where start

So Many Reasons Not To Do It

The first reason can become a perpetual perspective, you will not make time for anything thinking like that.

The second is missed opportunity to adjust your company's path to a freshly defined Mission, Vision & Value Set. One that you can actually stand behind or in front of.

The third exists as a misconception more than anything. Your Mission statement and your Vision statement and your Value set are just that. They're yours. They're not the reason why people believe in your product or service, they're the reason you do.

Getting Past Excuses

I professionally don't believe the Mission statement needs to be a consumer facing communication piece. Why would people care about the reason why you're doing this for you?

People want to know why you're doing for them | which is

different.

Crafted for the targeted audience of an organization, a Global Facing Statement stems from the intentions behind the Mission/Vision/Values, but has the public's interests in mind first. We will come back to this later.

Internal Vs External Statements

Let’s focus on the fourth and more common reason why you haven't done a Mission, Vision, Values exercise for your organization

I don't know where to start

A Few Things To Consider• There’s only value in doing this exercise if you’re going to be honest

with your intentions and your organizations current state of operation.

• Don’t get hung up on finding exactly the right words, or for that matter, how to say it in five words or less.  If your business isn’t professional writing, don’t stress about trying to find epic words. Even if it is, don't.  Remember you are doing this for your organization and it's stakeholders.

• You should be able to say your Mission statement out loud, calmly with the confidence of someone who believes in the sentiment behind it.

• Your Mission/Vision/Values  should represent the best version of your organization.

• It shouldn’t sound false or deceptive, like you’re trying to trick someone. This isn’t supposed to be a loop hole clause.

This should be the (reasonably) well articulated WHY you are in business.

Vision vs Mission Vision Statement:

• Emotionally charged

• Generally an inspiring tone

• Well it speaks to your present state it also speaks to your future state

• Probably doesn’t include a lot of specific executable details 

• This is a reason to get up in the morning statement

• This can also be successfully used as the rallying cry shared and reiterated when work is slow or challenging.

Vision vs Mission Mission Statement:

• What you do for whom and if I position on either why you do it or how you doing

• It should speak to your standards and should feel unique

• This is the plan that represents your organizations realistic and ideal operating mode.  Literally like a mission.

Common Writing Challenges• Getting too particular about specific words. It only needs to make sense.

• There is accurate and encompassing, and then there is too specific. There’s also vague, and general and ambiguous. If your statements and values are too general, you are missing the details that make your organization unique. 

• There is an analogy about a frog and a pot of water that is slowly heated, and it refers to our ability to ignore changes if they are small enough. I bring this up because it is very easy to find a path early on that seems safe and never looking back until it is two weeks later and the results are totally off message. If you find progress, push it to a point, and then start fresh with a different direction. Do this a half dozen times. The right approach will stand out.

Staying On TrackCreate groups of useful "base line" reference information to start with:

• What you do - Speak to the industry in which your organization serves

• For whom do you do it - How are all of your customers connected? This can be a great way of describing them as one collective audience.

• The WHY you do it, for the HOW you doing –This is where you have the opportunity to be unique this is the fingerprint I don’t imagine your company’s mission is to be exactly the same as everyone else, going to business to be graded it or at least be better than most of the things you seen it there this element of the mission statement his closest peace to your vision statement.

Regroup1. Value Set - Bullet List | Leverage-able Common Themes

2. Vision Statement - Emotive | Future-State Inspired | Rally Cry

3. Mission Statement - What You Do For Whom | Unique | Current-State Proud

• Keep it honest, easy to understand

• Be just specific enough

• Make it unique to your business

A Good Place To StartValue Prompts:

• Bullet list of things you believe in that relate directly to the service you offer• The work involved in doing your service (or making your product)• The relationship between the people that do the work, and your org.• The relationship between the people that use what you do, and your org.• The impact you have on the community/economy that are affected by your

service

From here you can probably highlight some key words that stand out on your list. These "themes" probably will even repeat.  The recurring concepts should exist and support the development of your two internal statements.

A Good Place To StartMission Prompts:• Without addressing the problem that you solve, what is the

simplest way to explain the service or product offering that you represent

• Describe the audience you serve, as a demographic. Don't focus on what you think they think about your organization or offering. If you have more than one distinct demographic, keep writing. Realistically there will be a way to define your entire audience in one way. It will come from really understanding ALL of your audiences and finding commonalities between them.

• What problem does your service or product offering solve?• Why does this problem exist?• Why doesn't this problem affect your organization?

A Good Place To StartVision Prompts:

• What is your favourite part of what your organization does?

• Is this "favourite part" a driving force behind your organization's focus

• If not, what are the driving forces behind your organizations focus

• Of these, what are the most important ones?

• If you look at the "need" your organization fulfills, what would be your goal related to fulfilling the need?

Closing ThoughtsI have not shared any formatting recommendations for any of these three key perspectives. The goal is to have the best content, and the format will find itself. 

You will hopefully learn a lot about your organization and the perspectives of the stakeholders.  This is also a highly shareable piece of communication for staff in new hires to give a clear overview on the company they are going to be working for.

Cheers | Chris Gostling | CEO | Momentum Visual Inc