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Mission & Vision
Creating a vision for an organization requires two dimensions
The vision is an image of a
future state of the organization
Material dimension Spiritual dimension
Which of society's needs
should the company
fulfil?
What should the company
do to make the world a little
better than before?
Increasing the value of
the company Contributing to the
common good
Deriving a mission is crucial to define an organizational purpose
•
The mission defines the unique contribution the organization wants to make.
•
It answers the question of “what for?”
•
It defines the fundamental purpose of the company
Core components: What?
(type of value created)
How?
(means of value creation)
For whom?
(user groups)
Mission
Understanding vision and mission through real-world examples
Vision: We want to be an energy company with purpose; one that is trusted by
society, valued by shareholders and motivating for everyone who works at bp.
Mission: Reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world
reach net zero and improve people’s lives.
[1]
Vision: More quality of life through sustainable outdoor products and forward-looking
business practices!
Mission: We create innovative products, solutions, and services that are
environmentally friendly and fair. By prioritizing sustainable quality and implementing
circular systems, we minimize our ecological footprint. In doing so, we respect planetary boundaries and strive to lead by example, driving responsible global business practices.
[2]
/
Hammer, R. (2015). Unternehmensplanung: Planung und Führung. Berlin, München, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
Strategische Unternehmensführung: I. Strategisches Denken - - Vision - Ziele - Strategie Taschenbuch – 26. August 2011
Vision and Mission
An organization’s vision has two dimensions:
Material Dimension: Which of society’s needs does the company fulfill? This focuses on increasing company value by directly meeting social needs.
Spiritual Dimension: How can the company make the world a better place? This addresses how an organization contributes to the common good.
The mission defines the organization’s unique contribution and fundamental purpose, answering:
What value do we want to create?
For whom do we want to create this value (i.e., user groups)?
How do we want to create it?
Examples of Vision and Mission
BP
Vision: “We want to be an energy company with purpose—trusted by society, valued by shareholders, and motivating for everyone who works at BP.”
Reflects material (being an energy company) and spiritual (trusted by society, motivating for employees) aspects.
Mission: “Reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world reach net zero and improve people’s lives.”
What: Reimagining energy.
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For whom: People and our planet.
How: Helping the world reach net zero.
VO (Example)
Vision: “More quality of life through sustainable products and forward-looking business practices.”
Spiritual dimension: improving quality of life.
Material dimension: sustainable outdoor products, forward-looking practices.
Mission: “We create innovative product solutions and services that are environmentally friendly and fair. By prioritizing sustainable quality and implementing circular systems, we minimize our ecological footprint. In doing so, we respect planetary boundaries and strive to lead by example, driving responsible global business practices.”
The for whom aspect is broad, implying society and business in general.
From these examples, we see different ways organizations define vision and mission. Not all dimensions are always equally explicit, depending on the company.
Creating a vision for an organization requires two dimensions
The vision is an image of a
future state of the organization
Material dimension Spiritual dimension
Which of society's needs
should the company
fulfil?
What should the company
do to make the world a little
better than before?
Increasing the value of
the company Contributing to the
common good
Deriving a mission is crucial to define an organizational purpose
•
The mission defines the unique contribution the organization wants to make.
•
It answers the question of “what for?”
•
It defines the fundamental purpose of the company
Core components: What?
(type of value created)
How?
(means of value creation)
For whom?
(user groups)
Mission
Understanding vision and mission through real-world examples
Vision: We want to be an energy company with purpose; one that is trusted by
society, valued by shareholders and motivating for everyone who works at bp.
Mission: Reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world
reach net zero and improve people’s lives.
[1]
Vision: More quality of life through sustainable outdoor products and forward-looking
business practices!
Mission: We create innovative products, solutions, and services that are
environmentally friendly and fair. By prioritizing sustainable quality and implementing
circular systems, we minimize our ecological footprint. In doing so, we respect planetary boundaries and strive to lead by example, driving responsible global business practices.
[2]
Normative Management: Corporate philosophy, values, ethics, policies, and guidelines.
Strategic Management: Translating the company’s philosophy into a vision and a mission—this is the direction-setting function.
Operational Management: Managing processes, business operations, and daily efficiency.
Vision and Mission
An organization’s vision has two dimensions:
Material Dimension: Which of society’s needs does the company fulfill? This focuses on increasing company value by directly meeting social needs.
Spiritual Dimension: How can the company make the world a better place? This addresses how an organization contributes to the common good.
The mission defines the organization’s unique contribution and fundamental purpose, answering:
What value do we want to create?
For whom do we want to create this value (i.e., user groups)?
How do we want to create it?
Examples of Vision and Mission
BP
Vision: “We want to be an energy company with purpose—trusted by society, valued by shareholders, and motivating for everyone who works at BP.”
Reflects material (being an energy company) and spiritual (trusted by society, motivating for employees) aspects.
Mission: “Reimagining energy for people and our planet. We want to help the world reach net zero and improve people’s lives.”
What: Reimagining energy.
1.
◦
◦
2.
◦
◦
◦
3.
◦
◦
•
•
•
1.
2.
1.
2.
3.
1.
◦
▪
◦
▪
For whom: People and our planet.
How: Helping the world reach net zero.
VO (Example)
Vision: “More quality of life through sustainable products and forward-looking business practices.”
Spiritual dimension: improving quality of life.
Material dimension: sustainable outdoor products, forward-looking practices.
Mission: “We create innovative product solutions and services that are environmentally friendly and fair. By prioritizing sustainable quality and implementing circular systems, we minimize our ecological footprint. In doing so, we respect planetary boundaries and strive to lead by example, driving responsible global business practices.”
The for whom aspect is broad, implying society and business in general.
From these examples, we see different ways organizations define vision and mission. Not all dimensions are always equally explicit, depending on the company.
Business units can change. "The vision is a concrete picture of the future, close enough that we can still see the feasibility, but far enough away to arouse the organization's enthusiasm for a new reality"3.
In every company, regardless of size, the corporate policy principles and strategic direction are determined by one person or a small group of people. This person or group of people is the embodiment of the vision that drives them. In the long run, it is always up to individuals who are ahead of their time with their vision. Therefore, the right vision means good corporate policy and culture, and the full clarity gained means good strategy.
The mission*, on the other hand, expresses the purpose of the company: Why does the company exist at all? What contribution does it make to social development? Would the community, the region, the state or humanity be poorer if the company did not exist? Companies that pursue a clear vision and have a convincing mission statement have a significant competitive advantage: they attract motivated and committed employees. "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to get wood, prepare tools and assign tasks, but teach the men to long for the endless sea." This famous saying by A. de Saint-Exupery contains two statements that are important for the management of any company5:
(1) The vision is the awareness of the dream of environmental change. At the beginning of every entrepreneurial activity there is a vision - even if the entrepreneur is often unable to put it into words.
(2) When formulating and implementing the vision, it is important to coordinate the key people in the company.
The vision is comparable to the North Star. The caravan searching for its way in the desert, whose landscape is constantly changing in sandstorms, orientates its journey according to the guiding principles of the starry sky. The stars are not the destination of the journey; but they are a sure guide for the way to the oasis, no matter which direction the caravan is heading for it. what travel equipment they have and how difficult the terrain is.'
Employees in the company also need a vision that they can follow like the North Star. The star is not the destination, but it indicates the direction in which they can direct their thoughts, actions and feelings.
2.2 The three components of the vision
The vision is the result of three components (Fig. 2.1): openness, spontaneity and a sense of reality. Openness is directed outwards, spontaneity inwards. Vision only succeeds through the synthesis of openness and spontaneity based on a sense of reality.
OPENNESS
SPONTANEITY
Fig. 2.1 The three components of the vision
SENSE OF REALITY
44 2. The entrepreneurial vision
Openness means being open to the spirit of the times and the real needs of people. Like many of his contemporaries, Duttweiler recognized the problems of traditional trade structures; unlike his contemporaries, however, he was interested - for whatever reasons - in changing the existing situation. Openness, the recognition of the possibility of environmental change, the feeling of unease, must therefore meet with the interest of the visionary individual, however appropriate. In everyday practice, openness means:
— seeking and understanding other opinions,
— putting yourself in the other person's shoes,
— actively listening when dealing with customers, employees and third parties,
— reading books and magazines outside your own field of expertise,
— attending seminars and, more generally,
— cultivating relationships with creative people.
Spontaneity is the ability to adopt different viewpoints from which to look at things. Steve and Wozniak did not develop the personal computer from existing computing systems, but rather set new conditions and changed the rules of the game in an authoritative, spontaneous way. Spontaneity is the development of the vision, the conscious withdrawal and the consideration of the sense of reality of the vision - the rendezvous with yourself7.
Sense of reality means seeing things as they are and not as they should be in your ideas and wishes. Ideas alone do not make a vision; In order for them to become a vision, they must: 1) meet a real need of people and 2) be embodied so credibly that employees are prepared to commit themselves to it and be motivated. Many companies have been led into the abyss by "visionaries" because they either lacked a sense of reality or were unable to convey their vision to the employees' understanding. The "caravan example" says that the direction to the caravan's oasis is indeed shown by the stars; in order to reach the oasis safely, however, all Bedouins must 1) keep "one eye on the ground" because otherwise the caravan will end up in quicksand, and 2) be convinced of the caravan leader's ability to orientate themselves. A sense of reality is the transformation of the vision into a concrete task; only then does it become an active vision. The active vision is the connection to the material environment.
2.3 How do you come up with a vision?
The better a company is doing in the medium to long term, the less it believes it needs a vision or thinks it doesn't need one. The problem of finding a vision is actually most pressing at the beginning of business activity and before any strategic reorientation of the company. However, even when things are going well, and even more so then, you have to develop visions, otherwise it is suddenly too late and you have missed the boat. Even successful companies therefore need visions, and in addition practical business principles, a business culture that is consistent with the strategies, effective organizational structures and a constructive monitoring system.
There is no pattern for how you can come up with a vision. However, there are principles that can help you find a vision; we divide these practical principles into positive and negative.
Positive principles for finding a vision are:
(1) Observe with an open mind! Force yourself to observe, even when you feel less inclined to do so.
(2) Think in alternatives! Question existing situations. Analyze your feeling of discomfort.
(3) Gather experience! Be grateful for every experience and every impression that shatters your imagination.
(4) Think positively! Every stick has two ends - a good one and a bad one. See the positive side even in setbacks!
(5) Be attentive! Concentration is the way to the ability to have vision.
(6) Put yourself in the shoes of others! Be interested in the problems
and needs of those around you.
(7) Be the master of your imagination! If you were to start from scratch today, how would you define your life's task? The vision should represent a challenge to be better than you think you are.
(8) Consider the question of what your very personal work could be when you look back in old age! How would the world be poorer if you or your company had not existed?
(9) Strive for a vision that corresponds to your possibilities! It is better to follow your own vision, however low, than someone else's, however high.
(10) Have a sense of humor! Anyone who has a sense of humor is, in a certain sense, free and above things.
Negative principles for finding a vision are:
(1) Avoid negative emotions! We waste a large part of our energy on self-pity, vanity, fear of events that will probably never happen and on completely unnecessary ideas of prestige.
(2) Do not identify with things! The more we identify with our job, the company and the community, the less distance we gain from things. We must fulfill our tasks professionally and efficiently, but at the same time view them from a helicopter perspective.
(3) Avoid projections! We do not react directly to anything, but only to our interpretation of it. We do not react to certain strategies of our competitors, but to how we interpret them.
How do you distinguish a visionary individual from a dreamer? This central question can only be answered by reconstructing his or her life:
- What has he or she made of his or her life?
- Was he or she able to set other people in motion and coordinate them so that visions were found and realized?
Ultimately, you can only recognize a visionary individual by:
- what vision he had at the beginning of each career or phase of his life,
- how he developed this or had it developed in line with the constantly changing circumstances, and
- to what extent he realized it or had it realized under which conditions.
However, it must be taken into account that the ability to have visions can depend on the situation. An oil geologist whose brilliant visions led to the development of large deposits in the Middle East failed in the Gulf of Mexico, Goethe understood nothing about physical optics, and Newton was a mediocre interpreter of the apocalypse. Even the most gifted entrepreneurs, poets and scientists cannot find their way everywhere. A vision simply does not come about if openness, spontaneity and a sense of reality do not truly complement one another. The vision is a heuristic structure that can naturally only prove to be realistic or illusionistic in the future.
Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives
Current Mission and Vision Statements
Vision: To build a future in which people live in harmony with nature
Mission: To conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to
the diversity of life (2) on Earth (3)
Critique on the Mission and Vision Statements
The vision statement answers the firm’s question what do we want to
become. It should be clear and should reveal the type of business that the firm
engages on. World Wild Fund’s vision statement “to build a future in which people
live in harmony with nature” does not answer the question what do we want to
become. It is also too broad as to its scope and vague.
The mission statement is firm’s statement of purpose that should distinguish it
from similar organizations. It should contain the nine mission components—
customers, products or services, markets, technology, survival, growth & profitability,
philosophy, self-concept, public image, and employees. WWF’s mission statement
lacks the following components:
Customers
Technology
Survival, growth, and profitability
Philosophy
Distinctive Competence
Public Image
Employees
Its mission statement does not distinguish it from other non-profit
organizations that are also bent in protecting the environment. The statement is also
too broad.
7
Proposed Mission and Vision Statements
Vision: To be the forerunner in saving the Earth’s wildlife, building a future in
which people and nature live in harmony
Mission: WWF is committed in protecting the world’s wildlife through innovative
programs by partnering with various Earth warriors worldwide, preserving the
biological diversity by conserving the crucial species and their habitat important
to the people. We aspire to develop and grow in order to inspire others of our
preservation efforts thus ensuring the continuation of our purposes for the future.
YOUR NORTH STAR
If your goal is the distant North Star, towards which you constantly steer, then it must be clearly articulated so that everyone involved can row in the same direction. The magnitude of social impact is based on a combination of breadth and depth – how far we reach and to what degree we improve on the status quo. Such choices will inevitably affect direction, priorities, success criteria, and decision‐ making. If we don’t know what success looks like, how will we rally others to achieve it?
As Astro Teller, head of X, Google’s moonshot factory, points out, there is a significant difference between trying to increase the fuel efficiency of a car by 10% versus by 10 times. Counterintuitively, he claims that in some cases a 10‐fold improvement could turn out to be easier, as far more people have already sought to squeeze out
incremental improvements and largely exhausted the possibilities.1 While both scenarios seek fuel efficiency, this quantifiable goal has dramatic implications for the appropriate approach and degree of risk to take.
One common argument I hear against setting measurable objectives is, What if we miss our target? The fear is typically of reputational damage or losing donor support. But there is an important distinction between committed activities and aspirational goals. Delivering on your commitments is important to build trust and credibility, and these should not be taken lightly. On the other hand, the purpose of aspirational goals is to stretch thinking and inspire. Articulating the difference clearly with stakeholders can separate the accountability associated with management objectives from the vision you want to rally everyone towards.
A well‐defined goal should minimally answer the basic questions of how many, to what extent, and by when: that is, the date by which you aim to achieve the desired depth and breadth of impact. As an example, the social enterprise myAgro aims “to increase the income of a million smallholder farmers by $1.50 per day by 2025.” The clarity of its ambition drives the team to continually seek ways to simplify their model and cut costs, as they recognize that financial sustainability is the only way to reach that degree of scale.
For an entire organization or initiative, I recommend considering a timeframe of at least ten years to keep the focus on your long‐term ambition. Think big. Work down from the size of the need that exists in the world, rather than working up from what seems achievable based on what you know today. Ask if reaching your target will move the needle appreciably. The best approach to helping a thousand people in a single community may be quite different from one helping ten million across the country, even assuming you will want to start small in either case. Later, when we turn to validated learning in Chapter Five, we’ll discuss the innovation metrics that can be used to measure interim progress toward this goal.
Your goal should be measurable so it can serve as a benchmark for tradeoffs. This means cold hard numbers for both impact and scale. Are you targeting a 10% or a 10‐fold improvement? Do you hope to reach all people or animals, or only certain demographics, species, or geographies? These choices will have implications for how you understand the problems and needs, the design of your solution, and potential paths to scale.
While some impact indicators may be slow and expensive to measure, in Chapter Nine we’ll discuss proxies that can enable faster feedback loops. Avoid the temptation to focus on tactical metrics, such as the dollars raised or number of people reached through trainings, services, or other interventions. These only reflect activity and don’t equate with having made a substantive difference. If your organization works across multiple problem spaces, consider setting separate goals for each rather than aggregating them into one vague and meaningless target.
ENDS VERSUS MEANS
One pitfall that is all too common in mission‐driven work is conflating our ends and our means. We can become so immersed in designing and deploying an intervention that we lose perspective on our ultimate goal and fail to recognize when our solution may be insufficient. I encountered this phenomenon while leading a workshop on Lean Impact at TEDGlobal 2017. As most of the participants didn’t know each other, I thought a good way to break the ice would be to have each table introduce themselves, share a problem they were passionate about, and agree on a goal for the purposes of the exercise. It didn’t turn out the way I expected.
Many of the groups immediately began discussing potential solutions. One became immersed in planning an anti–wildlife trafficking media campaign. Another debated technologies for an electronic fence that could zap disease‐transmitting mosquitoes. I found myself running back and forth between tables to prod each team to step back from its solution and focus on how the world would be better if it was successful. Eventually, the goals started to emerge. The first team wanted to protect increasingly endangered jaguars by eliminating poaching (a single jaguar’s fangs, claws, pelt,
and genitalia sell for $20,000 in Asia2). The second team wanted to reduce mosquito borne diseases in Africa by 50%. I had underestimated the gravitational pull of a compelling solution.
There’s a tendency to describe goals in terms of progress in deploying an intervention, rather than focusing on the purpose of the work. That is, the claim “10,000 people will be trained in better farming techniques” describes an activity that may or may not be
effective, whereas the statement “10,000 farmers will have increased their incomes by 50%” describes the desired outcome. The latter keeps us focused on the change we hope to effect and forces us to consider the possibility that our initial approach may not turn out to be the best path.
Why is this conflation common in the social sector? To start with, there is no easy metric, such as business profitability, to focus minds. But I expect that the need for a core differentiator is a larger factor. An organization constantly pitches its “solution” to donors, promotes it in its marketing, and works to deliver it. That solution becomes what the organization is known and sought out for. And, even isolated stories of success can create an emotional attachment that makes it difficult to let go of a marginal intervention. Instead we should try to hold lightly onto any solution and use evidence rather than conviction to determine whether it works.
Sam Goldman discovered this on his path to starting one of the most successful early social enterprises, d.light. While serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, Sam’s 15‐year‐old neighbor was badly burned in a kerosene accident. Sam became inspired to find a way to provide the 1.6 billion people who live without electricity access to safer, affordable light. As part of the Design for Extreme Affordability class at Stanford University in 2006, his team researched how energy needs were being met in Myanmar and Cambodia. They discovered an existing system of kids who shuttled lead acid batteries every few days to recharge them at generators. Based on this informal activity, the team’s first design, the Forever‐ Bright, was a low‐cost LED light run off batteries that could be recharged by a diesel generator.
Sam soon cofounded d.light and started to delve into other markets, including India. There, he discovered that generators were not as readily available as in those initial countries. The original solution wouldn’t work, and it was time to pivot. When he tested solar lanterns as an alternative, he discovered they were a far better solution to the problem. Solar was magical and blew people’s minds. For the first time, people could have free light day after day. Demand grew. Following many more pivots, d.light has now sold close to 20 million solar light and power products in 62 countries.
One of the core principles for Lean Impact is to relentlessly seek impact. A clearly defined goal reminds us how high to aim and offers a benchmark against which to measure our progress. Is our solution moving the needle appreciably? Is it doing so quickly enough? Can it reach sufficient numbers? Will it reach those most in need? A goal helps us determine if we are getting close, have an aspect that needs some improvement, or are way off the mark.
Notes
1 Astro Teller, “Google X Head on Moonshots: 10X Is Easier Than 10 Percent,” Wired, February 11, 2013, https://www.wired.com/2013/02/moonshots-matter-heres-how- to-make-them-happen.
2 “Asia’s Appetite for Endangered Species Is Relentless,” The Economist, April 19, 2018.
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