What is Your Company’s Mission and Why Should You Care?

A few weeks ago, I posted “What Is Your Company’s Vision and Why Should You Care?” In this article I defined Vision as “a picture of the future which creates an ideal and unique image of what the organization will become and/or the impact it will make.” I wrote about the importance of keeping the vision of your organization concise but powerful and portable so that it can be easily remembered, modeled, communicated and transferred.

Equally important for your organization is a mission statement. The mission statement defines where you are going and what your organization is doing right now to attain the vision.

Where the vision statement is broad, the mission statement should be specific. The vision for the organization should remain constant over time while the mission can change depending on what the organization is able to achieve and depending on market forces. The mission statement can also include some key success factors and parameters that allow the organization to clearly see and measure success as you move towards fulfilling the mission.

Did Your Organization’s Vision Leak?

Last week I posted an article on organizational vision entitled “What Is Your Company’s Vision and Why Should You Care?” Besides defining what a vision statement is and providing some examples, I stated that an organization’s vision must be “clearly articulated, consistently modeled and communicated”.

Why does the organizational vision have to be clearly articulated, consistently modeled and communicated? Because vision leaks!

I first heard the “vision leaks” phrase during a leadership training class led by Andy Stanley and then I noticed it was included as axiom number 13 in Bill Hybels’ book Axiom. I am not sure where it originated from but it is an extremely important concept for business leaders.

What Is Your Company’s Vision and Why Should You Care?

What is your company’s vision? Is it clearly articulated and communicated to the whole organization? Is it precise and concise or is it obtuse, drawn out and paragraphs long? Do your employees know what the vision is? Is it easy to communicate and to transfer? Can employees see how they contribute to the organization’s vision? Do the organization’s leaders model the vision in all their actions, decisions and behaviors? Would your customers agree that your vision statement matches their perception of the organization?

Why should you care about the answer to these questions?

You should care because a concise, clearly articulated, consistently modeled and communicated vision is critical to the success of your organization. Vision gets everyone in the organization aligned around a common theme and every decision and action taken within the organization is measured against its contribution to this vision.

This is an extremely powerful differentiator in our globalized, commoditized and “flat” world. Author, philosopher and professor Tom Morris said it this way; “If we don’t know who we are or where we’re going, how can we possibly know exactly what we should do today, and tomorrow? “ and then he added “From our most fundamental forms of thinking flow our attitudes, our emotions, our decisions, and our actions.  With a powerful ethical vision directing all our other thoughts, we don’t need long lists of rules to guide us.“

Productivity Apps

I have had quite a few people ask me what iPad apps I use for business and personal purposes. I am always trying out apps that are useful and boost my productivity. The following are currently my favorite iPad apps.

  • Microsoft OneNote 2013 (1PC/1User) [Download] – this is perhaps the best and most powerful productivity app that I use. OneNote started off as a PC based program that Microsoft sold that allowed the user to take notes and organize them in any way they desired. This includes graphics, pictures, sound bytes, emails, webpages, screen captures, etc.) The goal of OneNote is to replace your handwritten notebooks. It was turned into an app a number of years ago and I have the app installed on my iPad and my iPhone. The data is synched through the cloud so each device is always up to date. I have not used a paper based notebook since I installed the OneNote program on my laptop back in about 2005. OneNote allows you to take and file all your notes electronically so you can search on keywords and find all the notes you ever took on that subject. Comparing paper based notebooks to OneNote is like comparing a rubber raft to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier! Watch for a future post on how I organize my OneNote.