Saturday, May 10, 2008

What's the difference between vision, mission and values statements?


The terminology can get a bit confusing here, sometimes, especially if it is used interchangably by some people.


There's also a lot of cynicism about these statements. If yours are anything like the Dilbert example above, then cynicism is the correct and appropriate response. Yes, they can be boring, bland and meaningless, especially in a government context. The combination of one managementspeak cliche after another can obfuscate rather than illuminate the pathway ahead.


However, if you can do your own with your library team, then it's up to you how meaningful or meaningless they become, how useful or useless they become. If done well, then there can be no doubt about who you are, what you stand for, where you are going and how you are going to get there.


The real challenge is not so much in creating them, as in living up to them. We're all only human. We will fail at times to live up to them. If they are worthy of achievement, then we will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try harder to achieve them next time. I think its worth the effort.


In general terms the difference between these three strategic statements is:


Vision - sets the broad, long term direction, purpose and goals of the organization.
Mission - describes the path to reaching it.
Values - are the guidelines for day to day activity on this path


All need to be clear, concise and memorable so that they focus and motivate employees, steer their actions and inform their decisions. Managers need to make sure that everyone in their team understands what the vision, mission and values mean, not only for the organization as a whole but for them personally.


According to Kris Cole, together, an organization’s vision, mission and values achieve six things:

  1. Help the organization position itself in the marketplace
  2. Help employees focus on what’s important
  3. Provide a framework for the business plan
  4. Guide day to day activities and act as a reference point for decision making
  5. Send a clear message to all stakeholders about:
    - who the organization is
    - what it stands for
    - what it will achieve in broad terms
    - how it will achieve it

  6. Enhance an organization’s reputation and help it attract like minded employees.

(Cole Kris , Management: Theory and practice, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, Frenchs Forest NSW, 2005, p 452)


Here's a bit more detail to differentiate these important strategic statements. We'll use the vision, mission and values statements produced by Toastmasters International as examples.


Vision statement - Where are we headed?


The key questions to ask yourself here are:

  1. What, in broad terms do we do?
  2. What do we aspire to become in the future?

A Vision Statement should:


* express what the organization truly wants and cares about
* provide a clear picture of what everyone is striving to achieve
* unify employees by defining an enterprise’s fundamental purpose
* provide a starting point for moving forward and help the organization assess its progress and respond to change
* challenge, stretch and inspire people so they know their effort is worthwhile.


Toastmasters International


"Toastmasters International empowers people to achieve their full potential and realise their dreams. Through our member clubs, people throughout the world can improve their communication and leadership skills, and find the courage to change."


(Cole Kris , Management: Theory and practice, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, Frenchs Forest NSW, 2005, p 451)


Mission statement - How will we get there?


Peter Drucker says the fundamental questions to ask when preparing mission statements are:


  1. What is our business?
  2. Who is the customer?
  3. What is value to the customer?
  4. What will our business be?
  5. What should our business be?

(Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, 9th ed. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ, 1997. p 68)


The mission underpins the vision and describes how it will be realized. This means that it needs to be more specific and reflect the organization’s standards in areas such as customer service, employee relations, product or service quality and reliability, and profitability.


Philip Kotler suggests that,


"Organisations develop mission statements to share them with their managers, employees, and customers. A well worked out mission statement provides company employees with a shared sense of purpose, direction and opportunity. The company mission statement acts as an 'invisible hand' that guides geographically dispersed employees to work independently and yet collectively toward realizing the organizations goals.


Good mission statements have three major characteristics:


1. Focus on a limited number of goals
2. Stress the major policies and values that the company wants to honour
3. Define the major competitive scopes within which the company will operate i.e.
- Industry scope
- Product and applications scope
- Competence scope
- Market segment scope
- Vertical (distribution channel) scope
- Geographical scope."


(Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning,Implementation and Control, 9th ed. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River NJ, 1997. p 69-70)


Toastmasters International


"Toastmasters International is the leading movement devoted to making effective oral communication a worldwide reality. Through its member clubs, Toastmasters International helps men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening and thinking - vital skills that promote self actualization, enhance leadership potential, foster human understanding, and contribute to the betterment of mankind. It is basic to this mission that Toastmasters International continually expand its worldwide network of clubs, thereby offering ever greater numbers of people the opportunity to benefit from its programs. "


Values statement - What do we stand for?


The key questions to aks here are:


  1. What do we believe is important?
  2. What are the internal principles that guide our actions and the behaviour of our employees?
  3. What do we stand for?

An organizations values show it how to do business and respond to a crisis and shows its employees how to behave every day. They link with and support its vision.


Toastmasters International


"Toastmasters International’s core values are integrity, dedication to excellence, service to the member and respect for the individual. These are values worthy of a great organization, and we believe we should incorporate them as anchor points in every decision we make. Our core values provide us with a means of not only guiding but also evaluating our operations, our planning and our vision for the future."


(Cole Kris , Management: Theory and practice, 3rd ed. Prentice Hall, Frenchs Forest NSW, 2005, pp 449- 451)


The main issue here is creating a set of values that can be lived in practice by the staff and management of your library. If you create a set of values that cannot or will not be practiced by everyone in the organization then you create a jarring sense of incongruence in both customers and staff. Remember, the values are for everyone, management included.


These strategic statements are best developed in a team environment with your management team and staff. If people aren't involved in the process, then it's harder to get their commitment to them. If the personal values, visions and missions of the staff and the broader organisational ones are in congruence then people put much more energy and enthusiasm into the organisation.


So be careful and be honest. You will need vision, mission and values statements to guide your business/marketing plan. If you don’t have them from your parent organization or if you want to develop your own, in alignment with them, there are many sites that can help you to create them.


Just for fun. You've earned it!


If you want to have a bit of fun, try


* the Corporate mission statement generator,
* the Evil genius mission generator
* the Mission Statement Generator (MSG that's good for you) for the busy executive.
* the John Haworth mission statement generator, which even has categories of mission statements like to the point, punchy, reasonable, boring and insane.
* the Peter Talbot mission statement generator which has 5,159,780,352 possible different statements just by refreshing the page.
* and, of course, the ultimate, the Dilbert mission statement generator.


and that's only from the first two pages of a Google search on mission statement generator.

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