Understanding and Creating Vision and Mission Statements

Book excerpt: There isn't a more powerful engine driving organizations towards excellence and long-range success than an attractive, worthwhile, achievable, and widely shared vision of the future.Every organization needs a purpose for its existence. The vision and mission of an organization focuses people's attention on a common dream, ambition, or outcome. It defines a common purpose to guide behavior. It is the foundation to becoming a purpose-driven organization. Together, a Vision and Mission statement begin to define, articulate, and communicate the purpose and values of an organization to others, including owners, executives, employees, consumers, customers, and other interested and affected people and organizations. In this handbook, for the first time, the authors present the tools and guidance they have developed over 25-years of consulting and working with a wide variety of bluechip clients across a broad range of industries, including financial services, retail, hospitality, technology, sports and entertainment, government and not-for-profits. This no-nonsense book will teach you how to formulate your thinking and to work with your colleagues to develop and refine practical and effective vision and mission statements. It includes background about the Painless Strategic Planning Process, education, exercises, examples, and instructions to help you and your team understand and painlessly develop effective vision and mission statements as the starting point for strategic planning or project management.