Mission statement vs. vision statement

Mission and vision are two elements of corporate phi­los­o­phy. Generally, they convey the purpose of a company and what goal it hopes to achieve in the future. Vision and mission state­ments perform an important function, es­pe­cial­ly when a company is being founded.

It is not always clear at the outset if there is a dif­fer­ence between mission and vision state­ments. Both are focused in similar di­rec­tions, but it can make sense to draw out a clear dis­tinc­tion between the two. Before doing so, it helps to un­der­stand the specific meaning of each term.

The mission statement is the basis for a vision statement. The mission describes the purpose of the company – that is to say, ex­plain­ing why the company exists and what positive con­tri­bu­tion it can make to customers and society. A mission should be defined as broadly as possible, in order to not limit the company’s future pos­si­bil­i­ties.

Examples of suc­cess­ful mission state­ments by well-known companies:

Google: To organize the world’s in­for­ma­tion and make it uni­ver­sal­ly ac­ces­si­ble and useful.

Amazon: We strive to offer our customers the lowest possible prices, the best available selection, and the utmost con­ve­nience.

LinkedIn: To connect the world’s pro­fes­sion­als to make them more pro­duc­tive and suc­cess­ful.

Airbnb: Belong anywhere.

On the basis of the mission statement, you can begin to formulate the company vision. This expresses a long-term goal or aspiring situation that rep­re­sents the ideal image of your company. The targets you set should not be more than five or ten years in the future. As your company grows it should achieve goals and set itself new ones; adjust your vision as needed to reflect change. The vision is usually summated in just one sentence, therefore it should be easy and simple to un­der­stand while still evoking an emotional response.

Four in­spi­ra­tional company vision state­ments:

Google: To provide access to the world’s in­for­ma­tion in one click.

Amazon: To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.

LinkedIn: To create economic op­por­tu­ni­ty for every member of the global workforce.

Airbnb: Tapping into the universal human yearning to belong – the desire to feel welcomed, respected, and ap­pre­ci­at­ed for who you are, no matter where you might be.

Ideally, the founders or managers develop the company vision and mission. However, other employees can and should be consulted during this process. The best way to do this is to let them judge different state­ments that have already been created. The employees are then best placed to assess whether the state­ments are ap­pro­pri­ate­ly iden­ti­fi­able and un­der­stand­able. Prior to this, employee in­ter­views can help provide input for the creation of the mission and vision state­ments.

The mission statement reflects the company’s benefits, while the vision statement rep­re­sents the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s higher goal for the future. However, at some point you might notice that these two elements cannot always be clearly dis­tin­guished from one another.

The first challenge is shown in the fact that both of these state­ments represent the purpose of the company – the mission addresses it directly while the vision does so in­di­rect­ly. Du­pli­ca­tion should be avoided in any case. Ideally, the added value comes through the interplay of the mission and vision. A further dif­fi­cul­ty comes from the fact that both state­ments ought to set a direction while remaining inspiring. There are different levels of intensity, however. While the vision statement primarily focuses on in­spi­ra­tion, the mission statement de­ter­mines the focus. In order to help you dis­tin­guish between the two, the main dif­fer­ences are explored in the table below:

Vision and mission state­ments create a common basis for a company. For this to happen, employees should un­der­stand and support the mission and vision. Even if “thinking big” is ap­pro­pri­ate when for­mu­lat­ing your vision statement, the goal should still be achiev­able. This will be the only way to motivate your employees and encourage them to work towards realizing the goal.

Once your mission and vision are defined, you can begin to define your company values. The values should contain your company’s prin­ci­ples and credibly represent them.

Example: Adidas’s core values are: Per­for­mance, Passion, Integrity and Diversity

Company founders work on business ideas by first creating a business plan. This makes it possible to first check whether an idea can be fully im­ple­ment­ed. At the same time, a business plan serves as a timetable and in­for­ma­tion document. Founders also need to answer questions here, such as what purpose the company should serve and what they would like to achieve. Therefore, the vision and mission state­ments form the basis of the business plan.

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