Clarifying Company Mission and Vision

Transcript:

Lou Quinto:
Hi, welcome to Q & A on Breakthrough Leadership. I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:
I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:
Today what we're going to cover and our topic is providing clarity around your mission and your vision. And the three topics that we're going to talk about is one, what's the difference between a mission and a vision? Two is once you've created that mission, how do you keep that first in front of everybody at all times? And last we're going to talk about keeping the vision inside of everybody as well. So the first one, mission and vision. Craig, what's the difference between them?

Craig P. Anderson:
Well, it's funny you ask because a lot of times people get those two things muddled together. Mission to me and when I've worked within companies that I've run and businesses that I run as well as the clients I've worked with today, mission is why do we exist? What customers do we serve? What problem are we trying to solve and why did we create this company? Something beyond we wanted to make some money. So we really want to try and identify what the mission is.

Craig P. Anderson:
Vision is what are we building? So three years down, five years down the road, what's the company going to look like? Today we may have five employees and a great idea and a handful of customer, but where are we trying to go? In five years how many employees, how many customers do we want to have? What's our reputation going to be? What are we going to be known for? These are the things that we identify in the vision statement to help us kind of say, all right, that's the direction we want.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah, I liked it. Post it. Very simply. Using an analogy. Your mission obviously is what you are today. What do you stand for? Where your values, What are you trying to do so that every day you come in and you know, okay, this is what we are as a company and your vision is what do you want to be when you grow up? So that's where you set your goals and you say, I want to be the leader in the industry. I want to be able to dominate a particular segment or market. I want to be able to work within a certain demographic. That becomes your mission.

Lou Quinto:
So, okay, the next one is now that we've created these things, obviously in a business environment you got to keep that mission in front of everybody. There's got to be that constant reminder. And I know you've been in the trenches. How do you keep that as a constant reminder in front of employees all the time?

Craig P. Anderson:
Well, a lot of times, you walk into a company, you see it up on the wall and-

Lou Quinto:
That's nice.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah, it's very nice and you walked by it as you go in. But the real issues, what are you doing with the mission? How is that built into your business? So when you're talking to customers, when you're talking to employees and when you're making decisions about products, about new client acquisition, hiring people, firing people, how does that all tie? Are you doing it in a way that is true with the mission you have for your organization?

Craig P. Anderson:
And I think that's the way you keep it alive is as a leader, you make sure that you're bringing that mission up as often as you can and bring it up in the context of business decisions that you make. That I think makes it very real for you and for your employees and customers and that will help keep that mission alive and help you keep focus on it.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah, and I'm glad you said in decisions we make decisions on a daily basis for our business and our companies and that mission or the components of that mission have to be part of the criteria that you establish in making that decision so that you're making a decision based upon the ethics of the company, the principles and values of the company, but also what are the primary goals of your existence, as you said.

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah, absolutely.

Lou Quinto:
Good. All right. And then now that we have the mission, we got to keep the vision in sight too, and this goes back to a previous podcast that we had where we talked about keeping a business plan constantly in front of people because these are your goals, these are your objectives, where do we want to be when we grew up? And I know that in many instances it's hard to lose track or it's easy to lose track of those things.

Lou Quinto:
So, but one of the things I always tell people is the best way to keep your vision in sight is to look at your daily list of things to do, whether it be you or whether it be working with a group or an individual one-on-one. And keeping that vision to help prioritize, because when it comes to priority, you have to, what do I need to get done right now?

Lou Quinto:
And if you can associate your tasks with your vision or your ultimate goal or an objective that you're working on, you'll be able to determine how important it is in your prioritization of those particular tasks. If something is not directly connected to a goal or something is no connection to a goal whatsoever, then obviously it's going to fall over down on your list of things to do.

Craig P. Anderson:
Absolutely. And I think keeping the vision in sight is really, if keep that vision specific, but you keep it something that is concise enough that everybody kind of knows what it is you're building. And then similar to what you're doing with the mission. Keep that in mind. As you're presented with new client opportunities, you're presented with new product opportunity, or acquisition opportunity is that all building towards that vision that you have for the organization?

Craig P. Anderson:
That should be the driver is it moving me one step further down the path of what I want to get to, right? That's where I think you keep the mission division very alive. So when you're doing business planning, setting annual goals, when you're setting individual goals for employees, how are you tying all those into that vision of what you're trying to build? So it becomes very real. I think both mission and vision are things that you need to keep very real for employees and by tying them into these business decisions that you're making and explaining those business decisions in terms and in context of that vision, that's where it becomes a living and breathing thing that's running your business.

Lou Quinto:
All right. So what are the key takeaways that you'd like to tell everyone?

Craig P. Anderson:
Yeah, I think for me the key takeaways and a lot of times we get trapped in the planning process about let's get some objectives, let's get these projects listed out. But I think that we really need to come back to why and really make why a real part of our business and the mission and the vision are why.

Craig P. Anderson:
That tells us why we're making decisions we're making and tells us who we're trying to work with. If we lose track of those, annual objectives or just, it almost gets back to our discussion on tasks. I did a lot of stuff, but did I move anything forward? And I think the vision and mission are those things that are really helping us move forward. And that's my takeaway is keeping it real simple for everyone.

Lou Quinto:
Yeah. And my key takeaway is very similar. Understand that the mission and the vision is not something you hang on a wall and you just go people, they'll spot something and go, "Oo, look at that. Isn't that nice?" It's living and breathing. It comes into play when we're doing our daily lists of things to do, when we're working on projects, prioritizing different things to make sure that one, it's in line with our mission, what we are today, but also where do we want to be when we grow up, right?

Craig P. Anderson:
Absolutely.

Lou Quinto:
And so that is looking down the road a little bit and trying to tie how those two things are together.

Craig P. Anderson:
Perfect. Great. Okay.

Lou Quinto:
Good. Well, we hope that you learned something about missions and visions today. If you liked today's blog, go ahead and click on the light button down below. And also don't hesitate to subscribe to Q & A so that this way you're alerting when a future blog comes up. Again, I'm Lou Quinto.

Craig P. Anderson:
I'm Craig Anderson.

Lou Quinto:
Thanks.

Craig P. Anderson:
Thanks.