Three Questions to Ensure Your Mission, Vision and Values are Driving Your Businesses Strategy
When you think about your company’s vision, mission, and values, what is the first thing that springs into your mind? Are they clear to understand across the business? Does your company strive for the vision, understand the mission and live by the values, or are they just a set of words on the company website?
Most businesses have a vision, mission, and set of values, and most leaders understand the importance of using these as objectives and guiding behaviours that define the desired goals and culture of a company. Defining why you are doing what you are doing (mission), where do you want to go (vision) and how you’re going to go about achieving it (values) provides a clear foundation to build the businesses strategy on.
With the end of the financial year quickly approaching, many businesses will be beginning to look at their FY23 strategic plans. When considering the business mission, vision and values we recommended that leaders think of the process as getting your team on a bus. Here are three questions to ensure your mission, vision and values are driving your strategy:
- Why are we getting on the bus? (Mission)
It is important that people understand why they are getting on the bus, otherwise, why would they board? The mission statement defines why the organisation exists, why it is important and what problem the business is solving. It provides people with clear direction and clarity that helps them understand why certain strategic goals have been set and what they are trying to achieve. The mission provides the framework of how we will get there and how we will execute the strategy.
2. Where is the bus going? (Vision)
The vision statement defines where the organisation wants to be in the future, the buses final destination. You wouldn’t board a bus without knowing where it was headed, the same can be said for strategy. It is crucial that all members of staff and employees clearly understand where the business is aiming to go, to help ensure they are making strategic decisions and that their efforts are aligned with the business goals.
Successful vision statements are logically connected to the mission as they created the foundation of the ‘why’ and the ‘where’. Answering the above questions will help define the businesses vision and mission and will ensure everyone is on the same bus going in the same direction. Without beginning your strategic planning process with a clear mission and vision, you are basically attempting to build a house without a foundation, no matter how hard you try it’s just not going to work.
If you fail to start the planning process with strong foundations, you’ll end up needing to rethink and replan the strategy down the track.
3. How will we get there? (Values)
The core values of an organisation reflect their ethics and principles, what they stand for and create deliberate practices in regard to how they achieve their goals and work together as a team, the values serve as a powerful tool. The best question you can ask yourself is, is this supporting our values as an organisation, if the answer is no then it’s not going to be a priority. The values then also support creating a cascade of behaviours for the team in how they engage internally and externally to adhesive strategic goals and business as usual.
If your company vision, mission and values are in need of a refresh, or if you require some guidance going into FY23 strategic planning, the team at TalentCode HR are always here to assist you and provide you with advice to get you started in the right direction. Feel free to call our team on 1300 559 585 for a discussion.
