The Vision Statement for your small business can be a daunting task to undertake. In my consulting and professional experience developing vision statements for various businesses, it takes a concerted effort by the top executives and each department in the company to develop it successfully.
The vision statement is much different than the mission statement and the process of developing the vision statement is much different as well.
The vision statement is focused on the future, so the initial step is to gain consensus within your small business regarding the goals for the future of your respective business. This is a complex process because some partners or department heads may disagree over the direction of the business. It is imperative that consensus is reached before you set out to approve a vision statement that will be seen by the rest of the company and other stakeholders in your business.
The challenge in developing vision statements, in my experience, is that they have to be short but clear and powerful. It can be difficult to deliver the goals of the future of a company in a sentence or two. It can be done with concerted effort, compromise, and the right freelance writer providing the service.
I worked on a vision statement for a company a few years ago where the partners could not agree over two words in the final draft. Some of the partners wanted to replace it with two very different words. It took several days of discussion, and a compromise version which I proposed, to work out the dispute.
The vision statement is also forward looking – it deals with where you want your company or business to go in the years ahead. In contrast, a mission statement functions strictly in the present, and is very short term by nature.
The vision statement has a long term functionality that can be, and usually is, more difficult to gain consensus within a company or organization than the mission statement. In my experience, it is difficult to get several people to agree on the long term future of a business especially in our rapidly changing culture.
The other big issue with vision statements, in my experience, is that they cannot be altered or changed. A mission statement can, and very often does, change where the vision statement will not change for the rest of the life cycle of the business. This weight of finality inherent in the vision statement, in my interaction with it, creates a whole other set of decisions in the developmental process.
A business, large or small, must ask itself: “Where do we want to be in 5 years?” and “What kind of company do we want to be in 5 years?” Those questions can be difficult to answer and gain agreement upon to move the vision statement forward.
In the end, I find that the best vision statement is one that ties the values of the business to the future outlook of the industry within which the business operates. The vision statement is a critical aspect in order to develop the long term strategic goals of your respective business.