A company’s mission, vision, and values convey its purpose, objectives, and underlying principles. Together, they form the company’s foundation and play an essential role in decision-making, strategy, and organisational culture.
Creating a strong mission, vision, and values is key to ensuring that everyone in the company (as well as external stakeholders) is on the same page, understands the goals and nature of the business, and is pulling in the same direction. This blog explains why these statements are crucial for long-term success.
Key Takeaways
- A mission statement explains what a company does, its vision where the company wants to go and why it does it, and its values clarify how it operates.
- When creating your mission, vision, and values statements, look at other successful brands for inspiration. Remember to focus your statements on personal ambitions to reflect individuality and sincerity.
- It’s important to incorporate your statements into the company’s onboarding process for new hires and use them as a reference during employee and company performance reviews.
What are mission, vision, and values statements?
In the most basic sense, a mission statement describes what a company does, a vision statement explains why it does it and where it wants to go, and a values statement clarifies how it operates. These three interrelated elements should align to ensure every person in the company works towards a clear, common goal.
Your mission, vision, and values are important because they set a framework for your company’s direction and goals while expressing its priorities and core essence. Creating effective statements everyone follows will help build credibility, establish a strong brand identity, and attract and retain clients.
Mission
A mission statement should clearly summarise a company’s purpose—why it exists and what it does on a day-to-day basis. As an action statement, it should be simple, concise, direct, and informative, focusing only on what is most important to the organisation.
Usually beginning with the word “to”, a good mission statement should be inspirational and communicate clear goals based on the company’s strategy, vision, and central values. Below are some examples of strong mission statements from international brands:
Google: “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Apple: “To create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives.”
LinkedIn: “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
Meta: “To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”
Coca-Cola: “To refresh the world and make a difference.”
IKEA: “To offer a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”
Vision
A vision statement is a broad, aspirational goal a company is working towards over the long term. It should describe what the organisation envisions for its future, serving as an inspirational guide that maps out its biggest aspirations.
Closely related to the company’s mission, which is more dynamic in nature, the vision statement is your guiding ‘North Star.’ It provides a fixed, ideal image of what your company wants to achieve and become while carrying out its mission.
- How to find your purpose
- How to be a more confident business owner
- Get inspired with these 8 books about business
The IKEA vision is a good example of a clear, strong, and realistic long-term goal: “To create a better everyday life for many people.”
The company expands on this simple one-liner by stating, “This vision goes beyond home furnishing. We want to have a positive impact on the world—from the communities where we source our raw materials to the way our products help our customers live a more sustainable life at home.
“By sharing what we do and speaking up for what we believe in, we can be part of positive change in society.”
Values
A values statement should support both the mission and vision statements and explain what a company stands for and how it should act. These values will be the company’s guiding principles, shaping its organisational culture and governing all decision-making and actions.
While varying from business to business, company values typically mirror their founders’ values. They should speak of the organisation’s integrity—how it acts when no one is watching, when there aren’t any consequences, or when facing moral dilemmas or other challenges.
Looking at IKEA again, the company states, “Our values reflect what we consider to be important—so important, in fact, that we refer to them as one of our ‘forever parts.’ They guide us in our everyday lives at work, from how we treat people and the planet to how we make decisions—large or small.”
The company lists the following values in its statement:
- Togetherness
- Caring for people and the planet
- Cost-consciousness
- Simplicity
- Renew and improve
- Different with a meaning
- Give and take responsibility
- Lead by example
Your values statement will guide the behaviours and decisions of the company and everyone in it. These values will also inform external stakeholders about what is important to the organisation at its core.
How to set your mission, vision, and values
When creating these written statements, consider researching the missions, visions, and values of other successful companies, including your biggest competitors and organisations that inspire you.
It’s also important to look inward for inspiration relevant to your company alone, ensuring your statements are focused, ambitious, and sincere. This will help differentiate your brand from others.
Examples of questions you could ask yourself when developing your mission, vision, and values include:
- Why did you create the business?
- What does the company do?
- Who does the company serve?
- Who are the key stakeholders?
- What is the company trying to accomplish?
- What impact or changes does the company hope to achieve in its target market and wider society?
- What is the higher aspiration that the company is working towards in the long term?
- Where do you see the business in 5 or 10 years?
- What does the company stand for?
- What core beliefs and behaviours does the company value over everything else?
- How do you intend to carry out activities to achieve the company’s mission and vision?
- How does the company treat its employees and other stakeholders (e.g. customers, suppliers, the wider community, the environment)?
Keep your statements inspiring and concise, using clear and simple language to be effective and avoid ambiguity. They should be impactful and memorable, communicating who you are, where you are going, and what you value as an organisation.
Creating the perfect company mission, vision, and values statements takes time and effort. However, ensuring they accurately reflect your organisation and its objectives is a worthwhile endeavour.
Next steps when you have created your statements
As the guiding star of your business, your statements should be circulated or made available to all internal and external stakeholders. You can publish them on your website and include them in your company handbook.
Once implemented, you should also make them part of the onboarding process for new starters and use the statements as a reference during employee and company performance reviews.
Doing so will help to ensure that they are widely known and understood, remain at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and serve as the foundation for all company decisions and actions.
You may need to update these statements as the company evolves or grows over time. For this reason, it’s important to review and update them periodically to reflect any changes to the company’s purpose, goals, or values.
Conclusion
It’s a common misconception that only large organisations require mission, vision, and values statements, but this is not the case. When well-crafted and implemented effectively, they can help guide a new or established company in the right direction, keeping everyone on track to achieve its immediate and future goals.
We hope you found this blog helpful and inspirational in developing your company’s mission and values. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below. Don’t forget to browse the 1st Formations blog for more business tips and advice.
Or maybe you’re feeling inspired to start your own business based on your beliefs and values. Check if your ideal company name is available and start your journey with 1st Formations.
Please note that the information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or professional advice. While our aim is that the content is accurate and up to date, it should not be relied upon as a substitute for tailored advice from qualified professionals. We strongly recommend that you seek independent legal and tax advice specific to your circumstances before acting on any information contained in this article. We accept no responsibility or liability for any loss or damage that may result from your reliance on the information provided in this article. Use of the information contained in this article is entirely at your own risk.
Join The Discussion