Strategy 101 - Vision

Business strategy begins with a vision. The vision is often that of the founder of the business, but many companies do not find their vision until they have been in business for years when the founder may no longer be active in the organization. Regardless of when the vision is spelled out, it is only lofty words unless it is the vehicle for the company's leader to drive the entire organization forward, as summarized perfectly by Jack Welch, who said:

"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

The vision is articulated in a vision statement. The vision statement sets a clear, specific, inspirational goal. It does not matter if the goal is achievable so long as it is worth striving toward. The vision statement spells out the desired goal in unambiguous terms.

Here are examples of effective vision statements:

• Our vision is a world without hunger.


• We network the world.


• We put you in control of your finances.


• Our vision is clean, affordable energy for everyone.


• We serve the best pizza in Chicago.

The vision statement is a single declarative sentence. It starts with "we" or "our" so that it is clear that it belongs to the organization and that everyone in the organization is part of the effort to achieve the vision. It uses no extra words to describe the desired end state. It presents a unifying idea that can endure over decades. It should be stable over long periods of time.

The vision statement tells the organization why it exists. The mission statement tells it what it needs to focus on in the near-term in order to make the vision happen. This is the next subject in Strategy 101.

(The examples used above are made up by the author unless explicitly attributed. Any similarity of these fictional examples to those used by actual organizations is coincidental and unintentional.)

Copyright © 2007 Philip Bookman

Technorati: Business Strategy, Strategic Planning.