Vision Statement: What’s Your Future?

Karen Raisch-Siegel shares the difference between a mission and vision statement, and provides tips on creating your own.

Look into your crystal ball and what do you see? What is the vision for your future? With all the changes in our industry, is your vision statement still applicable and leading your team in the right direction?

The term vision statement refers to an explanation of what a business or person wants to be or get done. It identifies goals, provides direction to activities, and helps to motivate people to move forward. And today, this is exactly what we all need to do – we all need to begin moving forward.

To be clear, it’s important to point out that a vision statement is not the same as a mission statement. The mission statement is the purpose of the business – its reason for existing. The mission statement is timeless and answers what we do, and what makes us different. A vision statement is time-bound and a bit more tangible – it answers where we aim to be.      

Below are some helpful tips to think about as you review or re-create your vision statement:

• Keep it short and simple. Try to limit to only a couple of sentences and avoid using industry jargon or buzzwords. People from inside and outside your company should be able to understand it.
• Define the perfect state of being and write it down in the present tense. 
• Make it inspirational. Get your team excited about where they are headed.
• Make it obtainable but still a stretch – ambitious enough to still be exciting.
• Have it describe a unique outcome.
• Align it with company values. This will help get your staff to exhibit the values as they perform their work.

Examples of exciting vision statements are Tesla’s, “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” As well as “Ideas worth spreading” from Ted Talks.

Where are you going to be in your future? Take the time to figure this out. Once the vision is clear, get it communicated. You can begin heading in that direction with 20/20 vision.