Working with a group of front-line supervisors recently, I realized that many of them held the belief that “vision” and “mission” and “values” were concepts best left to the senior leaders in the organization.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
Whether you lead a group of three as their supervisor or run a large multi-national organization as CEO, you need to know and communicate your mission, vision and values.
A mission (statement) is simply a description of what your team, department, or organization does. A vision is a compelling picture of the future you want to create. And a values statement describes how you’re choosing to operate together.
Corporations spend millions developing their vision and mission statements. You can do it for free, in just a few minutes. Imagine you’re talking to a new employee who’s just about to join your team. Ask yourself – how would you finish these three statements?
“Here’s what we do around here.”
“Here’s what we’re trying to become.”
“Here’s what is most important to us.”
When you can tell a new employee what your team does, what it’s trying to create, and how it goes about the work, you’ve described your mission, vision and values.
See, pretty simple!
