Forming a Mission, Vision, and Goals

Just started a business or organization? This article covers the basics of forming a mission, defining your vision, and setting effective goals.

Forming your Business’s Mission

The mission statement answers one main question: what is the purpose of the business? We can break that down into four components:

• WHAT does my business do for customers?
• WHY does it exist? WHY does the business do what it does?
• WHO does my business serve?
• HOW is my business achieving all of this?

When you are forming the mission, the first step is to separately answer all of the components (what, why, who, how) in the context of your business. This step is best done collaboratively because each person can offer a different perspective, which will lead to the mission statement being honest and unbiased.

Next, you need to draft a statement that incorporates all of the components answered in the previous step – what, why, who, and how. Looking at examples of missions that other businesses have formed and seeing how they broke their mission down into the four components can help.

Revising the drafts is the last step. Don’t rush this step – revision can make your mission statement much more powerful!

Here are some important things to keep in mind when revising:

• Keep it concise (statement should only be one sentence long)
• Avoid using professional jargon
• Aim to invoke emotion and/or relate with potential customers
• Have people that aren’t part of the business (friends, family members, etc.) review your mission statement throughout the process – you want to make sure that anyone is able to understand the business’s purpose just by reading the mission.
• For non-profits: focus on the “why” aspect. You want to highlight the problem being solved and your desired impact!

You now have a mission for your business/organization!

Defining your Vision

If you are struggling to find your business’s vision, ask yourself: what does the business aspire to be in the future?

Maybe you want to be one of the country’s top healthcare providers or be one of the main hangout spots in your community – those are all examples of visions! Clearly defining your business’s vision will make sure that you are working in the right direction and will keep you motivated. It also gives people a better understanding of what your business is working towards.

Going through the same drafting and revising process used when forming a mission is the best way to create a proper vision statement. This is discussed under the Forming your business’s mission heading.

Setting Goals for your Business

Goals will help your organization work towards fulfilling its mission and reaching its vision. Good goals can keep your team focused and productive, but bad goals can lead to confusion and slowed progress. The SMART goal setting method is a simple way of forming effective goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Specific: be detailed and clear when forming the goal. This will help avoid confusion and improve efficiency.

Measurable: your goals should be trackable and/or quantifiable. You will be able to easily tell when you have achieved the goal or measure its progress.

Actionable: you should be able to define actionable steps to work towards achieving the goal.

Realistic: be realistic when setting goals! Your goals can still be ambitious, just make sure they aren’t nearly impossible to achieve.

Time-Bound: set a deadline for the goal and stick to it. The goal’s completion will begin to be pushed further and further back without a firm deadline.

As you set more goals using the SMART method, you will get a grasp on forming effective goals that motivate you and your team.