What’s a mission? What’s a vision? And how do they differ? This a common source of confusion for people starting out in strategy and more broadly amongst members of organisations.
I vividly recall a workshop we were facilitating with an executive team where we’d gone in with a clear game plan to refresh an organisation’s vision. As we often did, we were very clear about the steps involved, timing, the purpose of each agenda item etc. We knew we needed to avoid the team getting bogged down in the wordsmithing or polishing a vision statement. Near enough was good enough for that session. A few ballpark sentences that captured a future direction or aspiration for the organisation was all we set out to achieve.
As happens sometimes when facilitating strategy sessions, the workshop couldn’t have gone less to plan. Instead of working through our detailed facilitation plan, we spent the entire session facilitating (really observing) a debate amongst the executive team on the difference was between vision and mission! We’d (wrongly) taken it for granted that this was clearly understood amongst the group. Which goes to show that even a talented and experienced group comprising a CEO and other executive managers can find themselves confused on this very topic. So it’s no wonder that early career strategy practitioners and front line members of an organisations find themselves confused too.
Mission and vision are peas in the same strategy pod. Different, but inextricably linked.
Mission is an organisation’s core purpose
An organisation’s mission can be thought of as its core purpose, its reason for being. An organisation’s mission is enduring and often never really changes over time (although it may be clarified over time and reinterpreted through evolving mission statements). Jim Collins (author of Good to Great and Built to Last) and Jerry Porras define it as “an organisation’s most fundamental reason for being” and Simon Sinek (author of Start With Why) defines it as an organisation’s why: why it does what it does.
Mission doesn’t specifically refer to the future anymore than it refers to the now. It is why an organisation exists now. It’s not a goal. It should be inspirational, but not aspirational. It is how an organisation adds value and contributes to making the world a better place, both now and in the future.
Vision is an organisation’s destination
An organisation’s vision captures its ambition, it’s audacious future state. It’s the destination toward which an organisation seeks to navigate over time. A vision isn’t about the present, it’s entirely about the future. It acts as a beacon towards which we can test any decision, “Is it a step in the direction of the organisation we aspire to become?”.
How do vision and mission relate?
A simple analogy to relate the two concepts is to think of an amateur football team. The team’s mission might be to ‘stay fit while having fun’ (i.e. why it exists). But the team’s vision could be to ‘win the championship’ (i.e. its ambition for the future).
Taking this analogy a step further, a mistake you will often see is that the mission of the football team might have been ‘to play football’. This isn’t a very good mission, as it’s focussed on what the team does, not why it does it. There is no inspirational quality to ‘play football’, which is a prosaic matter of fact statement that doesn’t address the team’s underlying reason for existence. Furthermore, the mission of an amateur football team (e.g. to stay fit while having fun) will likely be very different to that of a professional team (e.g. to create an overwhelming sense of pride for our city), reflecting the differing underlying motivations. Yet what they do is exactly the same. To read more about why vs what, start with our summary of Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why.
Another question that often comes up is in regard to the hierarchy between vision and mission. My view is that one isn’t more important than the other, as they’re two sides of the same coin that can’t be separated. I also don’t really think it matters, as – when crafted well – the vision and mission complement one another and should never be in conflict, so there’s no need to choose between the two.
Key take away
The key take away: vision and mission are the superior concepts that should always inform an organisation’s strategic planning work and the selection of strategies, objectives and key results.
Want to develop a vision and mission for your team or organisation?
We’ve developed a Strategic Planning Toolkit, which helps any team or organisation develop a mission (we call it core purpose) and vision as part of a one page strategic plan developed in a one day workshop. The toolkit includes a practical, proven and straightforward process. And it includes all the templates you’ll need, including agendas, e-mails, meeting invites and presentations. You can download a free sample here.
Impact Society
Strategic Planning Toolkit
New
New. Launch a straightforward strategic plan in under 30 days. A step-by-step guide for CEOs, team managers, founders and strategy professionals. Includes 130+ page guidebook and templates, checklists and agendas.
